Public funding for professional sport, a slippery slope

What Legault’s use of taxpayer money on the L.A. Kings taught us about taxpayer funds for sports

SportsOpinionTrent Deschamps-Coinner — Published October 21, 2025 4 minutes

Many spoke out against what they saw as reckless spending of public funds. Opposition parties voiced their concerns with this volume of spending on a non-essential use amid other economic and fiscal challenges in the province. The flames of these concerns were fanned even further when the Montreal Canadiens confirmed they would have played those same games for free.

This September, Premier Legault admitted to Quebec City media outlets that the decision was an “error.” While the acknowledgement of the mistake provides some solace, in my opinion it still fails to account for the misuse of money at a time of economic instability.

When Legault first announced the decision in 2023, Québec Solidaire spokesperson Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois made his opinion clear on Facebook. He made a list of services that, despite their love for hockey, Quebecers would no doubt prefer being prioritized: “Feeding themselves. Not having to choose between buying vegetables and buying bus tickets. Not getting poorer by working in our public services.”

Initially, Legault defended his decision vehemently, citing the importance of investing in leisure. He also argued that the visit represented an important opportunity for Quebec City to prove its readiness for a hockey team. In showing off their facilities and fans, Legault hoped that the NHL would agree “to give a franchise, to have the return of the Nordiques.“

However, Vincent Marissal, Québec Solidaire’s critic for sports, challenged this line of thinking. 

“It would be foolish to think that to use public money for two hockey games—pre-season hockey games with a team from L.A.—that it would help in any way to get an NHL team back,” Marissal said in an interview at the time.

Hilariously, Legault’s initial defence of the idea included a bizarre comparison to the $3.7 billion it would require to address the demands of public sector unions. Why not, then, use the funds to address these demands, instead of dispersing money to draw attention away from the systemic issues within the province?

Quebec’s finance minister, Éric Girard, defended the use of taxpayer money by doubling down on the assertion that this would help in the city’s push for an NHL team. He also made sure to remind the press that the exhibition helped show off their new arena, which was also taxpayer-funded.

For some context, Quebec City lost their NHL team, the Nordiques, in 1995 when they relocated to Colorado and became the Avalanche. This occurred due to a variety of financial issues, including the need for a new arena and problems with the USD to CAD exchange rate (the team earned its revenue in CAD, but they had to pay their players in USD).

While many wish to see the Nordiques return to Quebec City, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman has stated that any potential team in Quebec has lacked a serious ownership bid. He also confirmed in 2024 that the NHL has no desire to expand past the 32-team league any time soon. This confirms the sentiment that the money Legault set aside for NHL dreams may have gone for naught, again calling the use of taxpayer money into question.

As this whole fiasco has shown, there exists a larger discussion about the use of taxpayer dollars on sports in general. Most can agree that it is a bad look to spend millions on a foreign sports team playing exhibition games in your city at a time when cost-of-living concerns remained common, especially when another team would have done so for free. 

The question becomes a bit more complex and personal in nature when we talk about the use of money on infrastructure like an arena, which could encourage the arrival of a sports franchise to one's city. While nowhere near the most important use of a province’s public funding, sports teams can become a crucial part of a city’s culture and those of the cities that surround it, as is evident to anyone living in the Greater Montreal Area. 

Ultimately, while the use of public funds on sports remains complex, Legault’s misstep showed that, without the support of your tax base, investments like this have the potential to quickly become very unpopular. 
 

This article originally appeared in Volume 46, Issue 4, published October 21, 2025.