Denis Coderre would have to make a “mayor” of him and speak out clearly on the construction project of a new baseball stadium in downtown Montreal, which project is sponsored by the wealthy Stephen Bronfman, owner of the firm of Claridge investment, and chief promoter of Groupe Baseball Montréal.
The question: Mr. Coderre, are you in favor of the financial participation of the City of Montreal in the construction of this other sports stadium? Yes or no, Mr. Coderre? It takes your answer now. Not the day after this election campaign.
Mayor Valérie Plante was transparent about this project. His position ? There is no question for her of seeing the City participate in the financing of this project.
Electoral transparency requires that the candidate Coderre, himself a big fan of the possible return of major league baseball to Montreal, stop playing the ostrich and tell us the truth about his position regarding the financing of the ambitious construction project of the stadium of baseball in the heart of Montreal.
After having put his feet in the dishes with “his” electric Formula race where he completely lacked transparency, the former mayor Coderre should know that it is politically not profitable to dodge such a fundamental question. that its position on the financing of this project of baseball stadium in the downtown area of the metropolis.
THE PROJECT ADVANCES…
Thanks to my colleagues from Journal, we learned that the ambitious plan to build a stadium in Montreal’s Peel Basin to accommodate a professional baseball half-team is advancing rapidly.
The plan would allow the Tampa Bay Rays to play half of their “home” games in Montreal.
That rich promoters want to build at their own expense a new sports stadium in downtown Montreal to “afford” a half a baseball team by the time they manage to get their hands on a full team … I have absolutely nothing against it.
But Bronfman and his partners from Groupe Baseball Montréal (Alain Bouchard from Alimentation Couche-Tard, Stéphan Crétier from Garda Word, Mitch Garber, ex-president of Cirque du Soleil and Ceasars Palace) do not want to “pay” for said stadium. baseball.
They want us, the taxpayers, to fund their downtown baseball stadium project.
LEGAULT’S SUPPORT …
And unfortunately for us, it’s a safe bet that these rich promoters will succeed in snatching hundreds of millions of dollars in public funding to allow them to realize their dream.
How? ‘Or’ What ? Through the government of François Legault, who, according to his Minister of the Economy Pierre Fitzgibbon, is in discussion with the promoters.
The challenge of the Legault government in this matter consists in finding the mechanism by which it would be “socially” profitable to finance (directly or indirectly) the realization of the ambitious project, the stage of which would be located in a new real estate development.
To show you how far the project is progressing, you should know that the Caisse de dépôt et placement, through its real estate subsidiary Ivanhoé Cambridge, is currently involved in the search for a financial solution.
Ivanhoé Cambridge President and CEO Nathalie Palladitcheff says she is ready to contribute to the project to build a new baseball stadium in downtown Montreal, but, she adds, not to no matter what price.
OPPOSITION
The three opposition parties (Liberals, Solidarity, PQ) find it unacceptable to grant public funding for the construction of such a sports stadium.
In my opinion, this is all the more unacceptable given that the Government of Quebec itself owns a magnificent Olympic Stadium worth five billion dollars.
I recall the pretext evoked by the bonzes of the Baseball Montreal Group not to bring professional baseball back to the Olympic Stadium: its distance from downtown.
Let’s see! We are talking about a distance of 6.5 kilometers between the Central Station and the Olympic Stadium, which is also served by the metro and buses … And parking is easy.
Group Baseball Montreal: The famous New England Patriots, from the NFL, play at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, 35 kilometers, as the crow flies, from downtown Boston!
