Even if he is a fervent hockey fan, there is no question of Paul St-Pierre Plamondon attending the Los Angeles Kings game in Quebec: “In what world would I encourage a squandering of public funds!”
This evening takes place the first of two exhibition games for the NHL club, which benefited from a subsidy of $5 to seven million from the Legault government to come and train at the Videotron Center.
The leader of the Parti Québécois laughed when asked if he was going to be present at the event. “I love hockey, but I’m going to go see the Remparts, but you won’t see the Kings,” he said at a press briefing at the National Assembly.
“In what world would I encourage a squandering of public funds!” he added. PSPP emphasizes that there is no transparency regarding the profits that will be made by the hockey team, which was able to count on money from Quebecers to hold part of their training camp in the national capital.
According to the sovereignist leader, the degree of approval “for this squandering of public funds is very low” among the population. “I’m going to go to the Remparts of Quebec!”, he insisted.
A sweater for Legault
The liberal opposition had a gift for François Legault on the occasion of the Kings’ first game. Interim leader Marc Tanguay held up a “King of Deficits” jersey, in the colors of the Los Angeles-based team.
“And you guessed it, it has the number eleven billion $!”, he mocked, in connection with the historic hole of eleven billion $ in the state coffers that the CAQ government revealed in its last budget. Marc Tanguay will not attend the exhibition game either.
Former hockey player and current Liberal MP Enrico Ciccone also deplored the granting of public funds to an NHL team. “Imagine what we could have done with seven million dollars!”
