Calgary officials to keep Flames arena details secret until after election, this is fine and normal

More news following Tuesday’s surprise announcement that the city of Calgary and province of Alberta plan to spend $837 million in public money on a new arena for the Flames, just over a year after saying anything over $300 million was too pricey:

• Alberta Premier Danielle Smith says she hopes the arena doesn’t become a campaign issue in May 29’s provincial elections, and she and city officials have apparently found a way to accomplish this: According to opposition leader Rachel Notley, “When we asked for more detail [and] if we could get a copy of the agreement, we were told no. All parties have agreed that agreement must remain confidential for six to eight weeks.” (Smith’s office denied that there are any secret agreements, saying all financial details are on the city’s website; all I could find was this report to the city council, which includes a reference to several attachments of “restricted executive summaries of the key deal terms,” none of which are actually attached.) Not sure how exactly that works out in metric weeks, but it certainly means that Smith gets to have the campaign boost of announcing a new arena for the Flames without having to say how precisely the project finances will work — who will get arena revenues? naming rights money? will the Flames pay property taxes? how binding will the team’s lease be? — until after the vote.
• A city councillor in Edmonton is griping that they didn’t get any provincial funding for their team’s hockey arena, and suggesting that maybe the province could kick in some money to build additional development near the Oilers arena. Smith’s response: “We’re prepared to have a conversation as well if there’s additional work that we need to do in Edmonton so that both of our downtowns in Calgary and Edmonton can grow together.”
• “Calgary tackles housing crisis by spending $867 million on new home for the Flames,” reports The Beaverton, concluding: “At press time, most politicians in Alberta were falling over themselves to agree with the arena deal because hockey good.” A+, no notes!

Seems like there’s still a chance that the Flames arena funding will become an issue in the provincial elections, and that Notley’s opposition New Democratic Party, if elected, could throw a wrench into things. Or, you know, not, since then they wouldn’t have an election coming up, and also hockey good. Guys, I think we may have found some bugs in representative democracy, we might want to pull it from distribution until we can issue a patched version.