I think there's a lot of confusion about this arena. What's happening here is not even well covered by the journalists here in Quebec. I just don't want to imagine what's being/translated said outside of Quebec about this.
Here's a short summmary of what's happening.
-The federal won't give any money to build this arena unlike the MTS Centre in Winnipeg.
-The cost of this arena is estimated at ~$400 million.
-~$15 million out of 400 will come from private funds (J'ai ma place).
-The city and the province of Quebec will pay 50% of what's left to pay.
-The construction is confirmed and announced. No doubt it will be built. There is nobody that discuss that anymore. The debate isn't anymore about building it or not.
-The city will own the building. The location of this arena is already chosen.
-The construction will start in 2013 and end in 2015. Why 2013 ? Needs have to be established, plans and technical specifications, etc. Remember we are not building this arena only for hockey but many different purposes. So, it must be well done...
-The city decided to not make a request for proposal for the arena management but to negociate with different interested investors. Kinda like an auction. They thought that they would receive better offers this way.
Quebecor won and then signed a binding agreement with the city.
Now, some guy in Quebec, De Belleval, claims this binding agreement is illegal and wants to sue the city.
Labeaume, the mayor then thought : "Ok. I think we made the good choice by having a kind of auction. It is maybe not permitted [legal] to do it this way, but we wouldn't have a better offer if we made a request for proposal. So, I'm going to ask the national assembly to have a private bill who would make our process legal. It's an exceptional project. This way, it's going to hurt De Belleval chances to win in court.".
The mayor then wanted it to be voted before this summer in order to sign the final contract with Quebecor. The binding agreement with Quebecor comes to an end in september. But in order to do be rushed and approved so quickly, it required an unanimous vote. Short summary : It wouldn't have passed (a lefty in Montreal wanted to veto it). So Quebec's premier, Jean Charest, decided to report the vote in September and it will be approved since it only requires a majority (the majority party, the liberals, said they'll vote for it.).
Now, the problem is when the national assembly will approve this private law, the binding agreement will have came to an end. Though, PKP already claimed his project isn't dead and he still wants a team.
As for De Belleval, the citizen who wants to sue the city, he's currently collecting funds in order to go to court despite the fact that the private bill will be approved.
Now, Quebec's lobbying commissioner has launched a probe into the arena project because apprently, only Bell and Quebecor have suscribed to the register of lobbyists (which was needed if you wanted to take part of this "auction"). And Bell made it only weeks later. They'll possibly receive a fine.
So, this is the deal with Quebecor that will have to be re-negociated most probably.
But the construction of the arena isn't compromised.
