Raise the Hammer

dmont said "It requires a detailed business case, and while your campaign's current business plan ("hold Bob Young upside down, by the ankles, and continue shaking until all bills are paid") is straightforward, it's not sustainable or fair."

It seems to me that Bob Young's business plan is ("hold Hamilton taxpayers, now and in the future, and the future fund from the past, upside down, by the ankles, and continue shaking until all HIS bills are paid"). That's not sustainable or fair either.

As Mark Chamberlain (a REAL entrepreneur, free enterpriser and capitalist)said the Tiger-Cats are just ONE of countless retail businesses in Hamilton. It's obvious that Young can't be successful running the Tiger-Cats without massive public subsidy or he'd build a stadium himself. He needs cheap or free public land in a prime location, owned by the City so he doesn't have to pay taxes and then a sweetheart deal (his rent at Ivor Wynne is less than a storefront at Lime Ridge) where he's the only tenant and then, at the last minute, he has the nerve to DEMAND a location that contributes NOTHING to the common good or the public interest instead of one that does and which he had previously committed to make work.

He's simply not prepared to share OUR money.

As has been demonstrated by the the Montral Alouettes, who sellout a downtown stadium with NO parking every game, the West Harbour is MORE than workable for the Tiger-Cats and infinitely preferable to Ivor Wynne but Bob Young wants it ALL for himself and taxpayers to pay for it.

Owning a professional sports team is almost always more about ego than it is about business. In reality, Bob Young is and always has been coming to the taxpayers with his hat in his hand but he's somehow managed to portray blatant corporate socialism as business or, worse still, a charitable act on his part.

The City has shown that it's prepared to continue to provide corporate social housing for Mr. Young. Most people don't have a major objection to that in the circumstances. They just want it to benefit other people and businesses, not just him and his.