Editorial: Rink study must go on

The federal government has jammed a very big fly into Thunder?Bay’s event centre ointment.

Late last week Ottawa informed city officials its $20-million application for P3 infrastructure funding had been denied.

City manager Tim Commisso, who is leading the charge to build an $80-million arena and convention centre for the city, was counting on those funds to help cover the cost of building the facility.

Without federal dollars, and with no one leaping forward from the private sector to help pay for it, it’s starting to look like it might not happen.

But those who decry the city’s insistence in continuing on with the next-phase feasibility study are off the mark.

Yes it will cost?$125,000, but it’s precisely because Thunder?Bay didn’t have a site chosen, complete with economic impacts, that gave the Conservatives an easy out this time around.

Perhaps if they’d been a step or two ahead at this stage, the feds might have said yes.

Make no mistake. The city needs an events centre like this. Fort William Gardens won’t last forever, and the city is off the map these days for concerts and other tourist-drawing events because of what we’re stuck with. The sooner it gets built, the less expensive it will be.