HALIFAX—The latest proposal to build a stadium for Halifax is an insult to taxpayers. It is based on unrealistic assumptions, increases taxes on other industries and places all risk on the public.

Let’s not be the next city to be fooled into wasting our wealth on a megaproject we don’t need.

On Thursday, Schooner Sports and Entertainment made their proposal for a CFL football stadium in Shannon Park public. They estimate it will cost the public $160 million. This, however, is just the start. Nearly all recent stadiums cost tens of millions of dollars more than expected.

The Schooners propose to pay for this with a complex mix of grants, fee waivers, tax relief and tax hikes. We should not let all this confuse us. It is all public money that could be spent on other things.

So how could we best spend $160 million (or more)? It is hard to believe a stadium matters more to this city than affordable housing, transit, safe streets, libraries and all the other things that actually improve people’s lives and make our communities better places to live.

The Schooners justify the cost by arguing it will be a “community stadium,” meaning the public can use it for sports and events. If that is our goal, we could do far better than one overpriced facility in an inaccessible corner of the city. With the same amount of money, we could provide multiple communities with great facilities throughout the region, where people will actually use them.

Deloitte estimates the stadium will generate $111.8 million in annual GDP per year for Nova Scotia. This is based on such absurd assumptions it should be considered unethical. It assumes that if there were no stadium, people would not spend the same money on other forms of recreation and that the same tax dollars wouldn’t be spent on other projects.

The Brookings Institute has analyzed the economic impacts of stadiums with more realistic assumptions. It finds the benefits almost never justify the costs. Stadiums attract few tourists or residents and they do nothing to make the economy more productive.

Let’s be clear: a stadium is a luxury. If we want to spend hundreds of millions on a luxury, then fine, but let’s be honest.

In fact, the current proposal could hurt our economy by raising taxes on other productive industries: hotels and rental cars. This means it will cost more for anyone to visit Halifax for any reason, most of whom will never visit the stadium. That is not a strategy for growth.

But the most frustrating aspect of this proposal is that it places all the risk of failure on the public purse. If the stadium is a financial flop and the owners default on their debts, the government would be on the hook to pay it off. In Nova Scotia, we should know better: we’ve had all-too-much experience covering the risks of the Yarmouth ferry.

If the stadium proponents don’t have enough confidence in the project to take the risk on themselves, it gives all of us important information: the people who know the most about this project don’t trust that it will work. No investor would put money into a company if their founders aren’t willing to put their own skin in the game.

Cities around the world are regularly bamboozled into spending fortunes on gimmicks because it is tempting to believe that a megaproject can kick start their economy. It almost never works.

If we want Halifax to succeed, we must be far more mature in how we spend our limited funds. We need a clear-eyed confidence that our city can achieve greatness through steady investments in the things that make a real difference for the way we live and work.

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A few football games a year won’t help us get to work faster, see our friends more, improve our streets or encourage our kids to exercise. We should invest in the things that do.

All three levels of government must decisively say “no” to the stadium proposal with a firm, clear voice. Then, we can ask ourselves how we’d really like to spend $160 million.

Tristan Cleveland is an urban planner and a Junior Fellow with the MacEachen Institute for Public Policy and Governance at Dalhousie University.

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