Canada’s greediest corporate welfare bums don’t build airplanes or overpriced ferries and warships. In fact, they don’t make anything at all.

When it comes to extracting money from taxpayers, Bombardier and Davie Shipbuilding are amateurs compared to the high-end panhandlers running Canada’s major professional sports teams. These teams typically are owned by some of the wealthiest people in the country, looking to get taxpayers to underwrite their businesses by providing them with publicly-financed arenas and stadiums.

The latest shameful example of this sort of shakedown is taking place in Calgary, where the NHL Flames franchise is attempting to extort hundreds of millions of dollars from municipal authorities to get a new arena to replace the Saddledome, which the Flames organization says is ancient and obsolete. (It was built in 1983.)

In a speech this week to a business luncheon in Calgary, Brian Burke, the team’s president of hockey operations, issued the most aggressive non-threat I’ve heard in a long time. “We’re not going to make the threat to leave,” he said. “We’ll just leave.”

Burke said he was optimistic about a solution but urged his audience to “keep in mind, we’re playing against teams that have their venues built for them almost 100 per cent cost and have favourable leases.”

So there you have it — the business model for most pro sports teams. Get taxpayers to pay for your facilities and then charge those same taxpayers $150 for the privilege of attending a hockey game or a concert. Sweet deal. Unbelievable, really.

But cities get taken every time — and apparently they love it. Edmonton just did, paying the lion’s share of the cost of the $614 million Rogers Centre arena for the Oilers after owner Daryl Katz threatened to move the franchise to Seattle.

Several Flames owners describe themselves as ‘philanthropists’. That means they’re willing to hand over a few million dollars for some worthy cause — but always have their begging bowl out when it’s time to hit the city up for hundreds of millions of dollars to build new facilities. Several Flames owners describe themselves as ‘philanthropists’. That means they’re willing to hand over a few million dollars for some worthy cause — but always have their begging bowl out when it’s time to hit the city up for hundreds of millions of dollars to build new facilities.

A study prepared several years ago by economist Adam Zaretsky of the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank in the U.S. said that public financing of stadiums and arenas is just about the worst public investment imaginable. “The rate of return a city or metropolitan area receives for its investment is generally below that of alternative projects. In addition, evidence suggests that cities and metropolitan areas that have invested heavily in sports stadiums and arenas have, on average, experienced slower income growth than those that have not.”

The study said most of the economic justifications trotted out to convince governments of the benefits of these investments are basically hogwash. When they tally up all the millions of dollars in revenue that are supposed to flow in from ticket sales, restaurant receipts and souvenir sales, it’s usually just money that would have been spent on other forms of entertainment in any case.

“Cities go to great lengths to lure a new team and to keep the teams they have,” the study said. “They feel compelled to compete with other cities that offer new or updated facilities. Otherwise, the home team might make good on its threat to leave.

“The weight of evidence, however, shows that taxpayers spend a lot of money and ultimately don’t get much money back.”

The Flames originally tried to peddle a massive project called CalgaryNext that would have included an arena for the Flames, a stadium for the Stampeders, a field house, etc. The cost was pegged at $890 million, with the Flames pitching in a measly $200 million. Taxpayers, through a series of gimmicks, were essentially expected to fund the rest.

Then the city realized it would cost up to $140 million just to clean up the contaminated site and estimated the whole project could end up costing $1.8 billion, with the city on the hook for most of it. Mayor Naheed Nenshi wasn’t about to mortgage the city’s future and declared that project dead. A more modest project is now under consideration — but again, it’s taxpayers who will foot most of the bill.

Nenshi, who is wondering whether a city pummelled by the oil slump might find better uses for scarce cash, isn’t biting. “I continue to say that, as always, public money must be spent for public benefit” — a novel idea when it comes to demands from hockey teams.

What’s particularly galling about the Flames is that it’s owned by five of the wealthiest businessmen in Alberta, billionaires like oil tycoon Murray Edwards. Several of them describe themselves as ‘philanthropists’. That means they’re willing to hand over a few million dollars for some worthy cause — but always have their begging bowl out when it’s time to hit the city up for hundreds of millions of dollars to build new facilities.

With relations between the team and the mayor deteriorating, Gary Bettman, the NHL president, volunteered his services as a “facilitator” to look for a settlement. That’s a bit like Vladimir Putin offering to smooth things over between Donald Trump and James Comey.

And where would the Flames go? Burke had a ready answer. Quebec City. Municipal officials there, with the help of the Quebec government, were so desperate to get back an NHL franchise that they actually built the $370 million Videotron Centre, thinking that if “we build it, they will come.” Nobody came and the arena is struggling.

As it turns out, the NHL still has no intention of giving Quebec City a franchise, arguing that the hockey-mad city is an inappropriate place for a pro hockey team when compared to places like, um … Raleigh, N.C.?

Of course, the Flames have no intention of moving to Quebec City. They just want to use the Quebec threat to shake down the city of Calgary again.

Bet it works.

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