Quote:
Originally Posted by MarkGio
Their taxes go to the provincial and federal government? The city gets the shaft. The provinces release their budgets every year largely independent of what cities do. The province didn't give a penny to Edmonton for their arena, and I can't see Calgary getting one too. If the Province makes cuts, guess what, the city is at a further loss. It's bad optics on the provincial government to provide Calgary with an significant increase in funding after a 1 billion dollar arena props up.
So that's the thing, Calgarians get the shaft. Their fines, parking and property taxes go up to fund such an item -- some of whom don't even watch hockey -- while the City yeilds no revenue. Meanwhile some little town in Alberta doing something politically appetizing so they get extra funding from all these NHL tax revenues. Or who knows.
But I will revert to my IKEA example. Very expensive capital expenditure, people love to shop there (it provides good service), and it provides jobs and tax revenue. Still, nobody is suggesting the public paying for a new IKEA warehouse? Why the double standard?
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Fair enough about the mismatch about who pays and who gets benefit but your IKEA example is easy to reply to. IKEA is substitutable. There are similar (not exactly the same, but similar) subs. You can't substitute NHL hockey with the hitmen, or NLL or anything else really. So who cares if IKEA chooses to be around. The NHL can't be substituted, and people love it.
There is no IKEA furniture fan forum page out there that has been around for 15 years with thousands of members that have posted thousands of threads right?