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Third, as noted by Mayor Naheed Nenshi in his public comments, the arena could bring broader intangible benefits to the city, like civic pride, excitement, and so on. While Toronto Maple Leafs fans may not be familiar with these benefits, all of Canada was recently caught up in Jurassic Park fever as the Toronto Raptors won the NBA finals. This is where the scholarly literature is in agreement. Matheson summarizes the research attempting to quantify this and finds intangible benefits indeed exist but are typically small.

But whatever the aggregate benefits of the deal, we must weigh them against other priorities. And Calgary’s municipal budget is highly constrained.

With downtown property values low, the city lost significant tax revenues from there. Attempts to make up the shortfall with higher levies on businesses elsewhere led to significant pushback, so council decided last month to cut $60 million from overall spending and pass those savings to business.

The cuts will be difficult, and arena funding makes them more so. For context, the $290-million arena contribution is roughly equivalent to $12 million per year. That’s nearly one-fifth of the spending cuts or, to put it starkly, equal to the entire proposed cut to the fire department, 911 services, libraries and sidewalk maintenance combined. Of course, there are other options to fund the arena, such as raising residential property taxes by roughly $20-25 per year for the average homeowner. But regardless of how it’s done, there are unavoidable trade-offs that council is not making clear.

The coming days are important for Calgary, and there is much to consider. Different people will view the arena differently, but we must weigh the evidence and consider the tradeoffs. A decision only days after details come to light is just not good enough.

If something is worth doing, it’s worth doing right.

Lindsay Tedds is an associate professor and scientific director of fiscal and economic policy at the School of Public Policy, University of Calgary; Trevor Tombe is an associate professor and research fellow at the School of Public Policy.