That’s how much Moncton taxpayers paid in order to move a Moncton Wildcats playoff game to Fredericton this past weekend because of a scheduling conflict with the yearly Radical Speed Sport car show at the Moncton Coliseum. Amazingly, the Speed Sport show has been running for approximately five decades and nobody had the foresight to think that maybe there would be a conflict with Wildcats playoff hockey.
Something is rotten in the city of Moncton, methinks.
Moncton Mayor George LeBlanc stated in an interview that this scheduling debacle is proof positive that the Moncton Coliseum - with its ‘jam packed’ schedule - cannot continue to serve all its clients, and the only way we can solve this problem is to build the oft-discussed new Events Centre (cue harps) downtown . You know, the one that’s estimated to cost $107 million- paid for with magical funding from our almost broke provincial government!
Yes folks, a city council that recently talked about reducing budgets for municipal services is going to ask a provincial government that angered half its population with recent cuts in their budget for a huge subsidy so we can have a new place for our hockey team to play.
Is this real life?
Am I the only person who sees how insane this is? I will be the first person to say that the Moncton Coliseum isn’t an ideal venue. It’s too hot in the warmer months and the ceiling is too low for some major acts that come through these parts; those are my two major complaints. It does, however, a decent job of hosting the sporadic non-hockey events that are held there and with a few million put toward a new air system and a roofing solution, it’d be a pretty good overall establishment.
It’s like this; I drive a 2007 Hyundai Tucson. It’s a little older, but it’s still in excellent shape. It gets me from point A to point B, and it does an overall good job of it. I occasionally have to put some repairs into it, but it’s a really good, reliable vehicle. Would I love to have a $90,000 Cadillac Escalade with all the bells and whistles? Absolutely, I would – but I simply don’t have the money to do so. Do I go out and borrow a hundred grand from somebody for a new luxury SUV while my wife and I are trying to budget for a much-needed family vacation this summer? No, because I’m not an idiot and I would like to remain happily married.
If you look at the Moncton Coliseum ticketing website, you will see that there is no schedule of events packed to capacity as Mayor LeBlanc would have you believe. You have the Beer Fest, some cheerleading championships, the Speed Sport show, and two concerts by aging bands where tickets are hardly flying off the shelves – and that’s it between now and September! If you can’t schedule events around that smattering of attractions, there’s something seriously wrong.
So, if we’re not using the Coliseum to its full potential, why do we need a new glistening megaplex downtown? To me that’s the real funny part. There’s all kinds of talk about how this will be a veritable gold mine for the area and a surefire money maker. It will bring all kinds of positive economic spinoff to Moncton and anyone who doesn’t support it is, apparently, crazy.
To that, I have but one question - if it’s a surefire home run, why aren’t successful folks in New Brunswick’s private sector lining up to throw their money at it? I’ll tell you why. It’s because the wealthy don’t get that way by flushing their cash down the toilet. They’re quite calculating and strategic with how they spend their capital and they know a pig in a poke when they see it – and this one reeks of bacon. Why should they spend their money when we have elected officials lobbying to mitigate the risks of the wealthy and instead go all into risky ventures with public dollars?
It’s all really quite mind-numbing.
The talk of the Events Centre, sadly, has to stop. It’s a pipe dream – at best – in our current financial reality and to use a (highly suspect) scheduling mistake to justify driving a city and province to even deeper levels of debt is preposterous. It’s like something from a bad sitcom.
I’d love to have a new Events Centre; I think we all would. It would be great to check out some entertainment in a new state-of-the-art facility, but I certainly don’t want my municipal tax dollars or provincial funds that should be going towards stuff like my kids’ education or hospitals being spent on it. The fact that this is even being discussed seriously by our Mayor and council shows an alarming lack of understanding of this city’s priorities and I would sincerely hope that saner heads will prevail.
As much as we want it, we’re not always meant to have that Cadillac in the driveway or Events Centre on Main Street. Sometimes we just have to make do with the 8 year old Hyundai.
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