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• Sixty per cent overall — and 67 per cent of those who say they are Senators fans — agreed that the NHL and commissioner Gary Bettman should “get involved” with moving the project ahead “if Eugene Melnyk continues to be a hurdle.” The question does not define with involvement the NHL might have.

Doug McLarty, co-chair of the Capital Build Task Force, said his group wanted Rendezvous LeBreton to provide more information about its progress to the public. LeBreton “is one of those critical infrastructure projects that we need to get done,” he said.

“We wanted to do the polling to find out what the level of support was in the community” for developing LeBreton, “and you can see from the polling results that it is just off the charts.”

Bettman has been bluntly telling the community that the arena needs to be built in the city core, and the NHL has been effective at delivering this message around the league, McLarty said.

“The RendezVous LeBreton proposal articulated a meticulous business case for residential, retail and mixed-amenities that support the creation of five new neighbourhoods in LeBreton Flats,” he said. “That is why the bid won the competition in the first place. Now is the moment to get this done.”

He said building an arena at LeBreton Flats would serve Gatineau and east-end Ottawa residents better. Many Gatineau fans travel to Montreal rather than to Kanata to see NHL games, he said.

He said the task force blended people from all sectors of Ottawa and Gatineau, “so this isn’t about just the Board of Trade acting on behalf of business interests.”

The survey was conducted online with 600 Ottawa adults between Aug. 21 and 25. A random sample of panelists were invited from LegerWeb, which pays participants to do surveys online. Results are considered accurate within four percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

tspears@postmedia.com

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