Flogging a dead horse

The real problem with the Blue Bonnets scandal

by PHILIP PREVILLE

Imagine yourself the proprietor of six million square feet of prime Montreal real estate. Your property is 15 minutes from downtown, 10 minutes from Dorval airport and two minutes from a highway that leads you to both, or to anywhere else you want to go. The land borders upper-middle-class municipalities to the south and west, and is perfectly uncontaminated. Even in the present, hyper-depressed real-estate market, it's probably worth more than market value. Would you sell?

This is the real issue behind the Hippodrome scandal at City Hall. Mayor Bourque's decision to sell the land at a $12.5-million loss has made headlines because of the councillors who have resigned from Bourque's Vision Montreal party. But the defections, while important for the minority situation they have created on council, have deflected from the actual issue behind the sale. According to councillor Michel Prescott of the opposition Montreal Citizens' Movement (MCM), "most of the defections are just councillors looking for an excuse to get off Bourque's sinking ship, regardless of what the issue is."

Last week, the MCM proposed a new deal in which the City, rather than sell the land, would lease it to the Société de promotion de l'industrie des courses de chevaux (SPICC) on a long-term basis. The current Bourque deal calls for the City to sell the land to the SPICC for $15 million, with Quebec City bankrolling the purchase. The province has also promised to spend $10 million on roads in the area and to give the SPICC $25 million in order to rebuild the sagging horse racing industry.

The MCM's proposal has now pushed the Bourque administration into demanding a "right of first refusal" as a condition of the sale so that, should the SPICC move the Hippodrome or fail to make the promised investments, the city would have the right to buy the land back. Vision Montreal councillor Saulie Zajdel says the city is seeking a right of first refusal with a guaranteed price of $15 million, but the province has thus far not agreed to those terms.

From MCM president Michel Lemay's, perspective, such a deal is not likely. "This site will gain in value," Lemay says. "It will be a gold mine." It's more likely that, even with a right of first refusal, the city will end up selling at a loss and then buying back at near-market price.

In previous years, says councillor Sam Boskey of the Democratic Coalition, various groups have shown an interest in moving the Hippodrome from its current location to either Laval or the South Shore. "The idea of maintaining a racetrack there is not necessarily the best solution" for either the city or the racing industry, Boskey says. "I can think of all sorts of things better for that land than a racetrack."

But to Zajdel, one of the few councillors still loyal to Mayor Bourque, such hypothetical scenarios are pointless. "Suddenly everyone's got a crystal ball and can see into the future, and it's going to be worth a billion dollars," says Zajdel, who is in charge of the Hippodrome file.

Zajdel agrees with the MCM's Prescott that many of his former colleagues left Vision "to get off a sinking ship," using the Hippodrome as a pretext. Zajdel says he personally supports the Hippodrome deal because, among other reasons, it's good for the anglophone community. "You've got a Péquiste government which, suddenly, is willing to throw money into Montreal's west end," Zajdel says. "It will be good for Snowdon, good for Côte-des-Neiges. It's almost unheard of."