Some CAQ MNAs questioning $7 million for two Kings games in Quebec City

QUEBEC – The decision to spend millions in public money to welcome the Los Angeles Kings to Quebec City is raising questions even within the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ).

CAQ MNA for Jonquière, Yannick Gagnon, got the ball rolling on Thursday, telling Radio-Canada that the announcement did not come at the right time and that he was receiving several calls from disgruntled constituents.

“I’m going to ask for an explanation, because my voice mail, my e-mail inbox right now, people are asking me to explain it to them,” he said on “C’est jamais pareil”.

Shortly afterwards, Bernard Drainville, Minister of Education and MNA for Lévis, admitted in a press scrum that the timing of the announcement had been poor.

“I hear the criticisms, I understand them and I agree with you that the timing is not ideal,” said Drainville on the sidelines of an announcement at Université Laval.

“I’m not going to back down now. I’m part of a government that made this decision, and the reason we made it is that we wanted to send a signal to the National Hockey League,” he explained.

According to him, the Quebec government has a duty to remind the NHL that Quebec City has a new $400 million amphitheatre that is ready to welcome a professional hockey team.

He acknowledged that the granting of a $5-7 million subsidy to host the Kings – an “investment”, he said – “is not unanimously supported”.

However, “once in a while, the National League has to know that we’re here, that we exist, that we have an amphitheatre to host a team, so that’s why we did it”, he maintained.

Drainville went on to say that “we continue to believe in the Nordiques’ return to Quebec City”.

“I respect critics, but imagine if Montreal had lost the Canadiens. That’s what happened to us in Quebec City. We lost our club. And we’d like that, frankly, to come back one day.”

“So yes, decisions like these are necessary, and they’re not unanimous, but they send a very clear signal that for us, the return is important,” he declared.

On Tuesday, Finance Minister Eric Girard announced that the Kings will play two preparatory games next fall at Centre Vidéotron.

He granted a subsidy of between $5 and $7 million, without providing an analyzes of the economic impact.

Girard’s announcement came a week after he told Quebecers during his Economic Update that Quebec’s fiscal framework was “tight” and that the next six months would be difficult.

The three opposition parties in the National Assembly, as well as Éric Duhaime’s Conservative Party, all said that the spending was ill-advised and that the government had lost all sense of priorities.

Speaking to Radio-Canada on Wednesday, Deputy Premier Geneviève Guilbault said she understood the criticism. “Should we have done it or not done it? I’m not going to take the place of my Finance colleague,” she said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published in French Nov. 16, 2023.