Taxpayers shouldn’t fund a new arena for the Ottawa Senators

So let’s just put a stop to this talk right now, shall we? Ottawans shouldn’t pay for Eugene Melnyk’s new downtown arena.

Not that the Senators’ owner has come asking, but there’s some loose talk around city hall about public money, and the track record of teams asking for alms for their mega-facilities suggests that, eventually, Melnyk and company are going to ask us to turn out our pockets.

(Full disclosure, by the way: A few years ago, I worked for Capital Sports, part of Melnyk’s empire, as a Zamboni driver.)

If negotiations sour, there’ll be howling about moving the team to another city, off-putting brinksmanship that’s become the norm. Calgary Flames president and CEO Ken King suggested that earlier this month if he couldn’t reach a deal with Calgary council on a hockey rink, CFL stadium and field house project worth more than $1 billion. The plan banks on hundreds of millions of public dollars.

Oilers owner Daryl Katz did the same thing in Edmonton, with an arena proposal similar to what’s happening in Ottawa. Rexall Place was old, and not downtown, just like the Canadian Tire Centre.

Both are more than just arenas, entire new districts, really. Both projects are backed by billionaires, though it was clear (more or less) from the beginning that there was going to be public money involved in Edmonton. That’s less the case in Ottawa; Melnyk was pretty clear last year he’s not looking for public funds.

Yet most NHL arenas are built with public money. Some — such as Rexall Place — were built entirely with public funds. The whole enterprise can backfire spectacularly; Quebec pitched in for a new arena in Quebec City to bring back the Nordiques and that hasn’t materialized.

The Conference Board of Canada, in a 2011 report, said it may be nearly impossible to build an arena without public funding. It has been done, though, in Ottawa, Vancouver and Toronto. Success hinges on market size, opportunities for revenue other than hockey, private sponsorships and so on, which, admittedly, vary from city to city.

In Ottawa, Rod Bryden built the then-Palladium, including an overpass to get to it. A series of factors dragged the company into bankruptcy, and Melnyk bought up the team and arena at a huge loss for Bryden.

Public investment, though, is rarely good for taxpayers. The arguments that it creates jobs, generates tax revenue, boosts the local economy, draws tourists, are mostly bunk.

“From a purely economic perspective, there is not a compelling case for public sector investment in pro sports facilities,” the conference board report says. That leaves proponents with dubious arguments about civic pride, bettering a city and improving the life of locals.

The simple knockout argument is this: Regular people shouldn’t help a billionaire pay for his project, just as a matter of principle.

After all, once it’s built, we’ll be there to hand over our hardearned cash for tickets, and pig out on hysterically priced hotdogs, pretzels and beer.

Oh sure, everyone in town wants to see LeBreton Flats developed (though you can’t quite escape the sense that many of us won’t live long enough to see it through), but the city is already spending scads on the LRT and roads, and the developers plan to apply for city grants to clean up contaminated soil. These also amount to public assistance.

The deck, though, is stacked against us, considering that most arenas need public cash. Plus, Mayor Jim Watson is planning to run again in October 2018. No doubt he wants to test the waters on funding well before that puck drops.

I’m quite confident — though I hope I’m wrong — that we’ll all dig deep and hand rich men more money to see the arena built. But one bit of advice: If Melnyk threatens to leave town, call his bluff.

There’s another investor standing by to develop LeBreton. In this negotiation, the city and Ottawans have got the upper hand. And the priority should be LeBreton Flats, not a pro sports team.

Tyler Dawson is deputy editorial pages editor of the Ottawa Citizen. tdawson@postmedia.com twitter.com/tylerrdawson