New Winnipeg stadium: city boon or public bilk?

Photo: Montreal's Olympic Stadium

Quite interesting is the recently reported poll on whether Manitobans would support public funding for a new Winnipeg Blue Bombers stadium.

The proposal, as it now stands, calls for the provincial and federal governments together to put up $40 million, which would match the $40 million being put up by private investors. According to the Probe/Jory Capital poll reported in today’s Free Press, 50% oppose (32% strongly, 18% somewhat) while 43% support (20% strongly, 23% somewhat) the use of government monies for the new stadium.

The poll comes only days after yet more evidence questioning the value that public funding of such projects have for the city in which they are built. Academics Dennis Coates and Brad R. Humphreys report in their recent article (kudos to Richard Florida for his blog's link and discussion) that, “in stark contrast to the results claimed by most prospective economic impact studies commissioned by teams or stadium advocates, the consensus in the academic literature has been that the overall sports environment has no measurable effect on the level of real income in metropolitan areas. Our own research suggests that professional sports may be a drain on local economies rather than an engine of economic growth.”

An economic impact study of the Winnipeg stadium project apparently projects $17 million dollars in tax revenue for the province from the construction alone. Being no stranger to economic impact studies, I find that figure to be suspiciously high for an $80 million project. Coates and Humphreys would probably agree: they note in their article that “the results of these studies invariably reflect the desires of those who commission them, and advocates of stadiums and franchises typically produce impact studies that find large economic impacts, translated as benefits, from building a stadium or enticing a team to enter the city.” They go on to describe a number of flaws typically associated with such studies.

The debate is similar to the one that followed the demise of the Winnipeg Jets team and the subsequent True North/MTS Centre arena construction. Some of this is chronicled in Thin Ice, a book by Jim Silver, who took the position that no public money should go to fund luxuries such as professional sports when our society faces far more pressing needs. Personally, I think the MTS Centre is a beautiful, amazing and highly successful arena, though I wonder whether the economic and civic pride spin-offs of that project even come close to balancing against the $40.5 million contributed by taxpayers.

In the case of the current proposed stadium project, it will of course be incumbent upon the promoters of the stadium to prove that the project is worth the input of public funds. We should be open to an investment of public money into an asset that will be cherished and used by the province’s citizens, but certainly not to corporate welfare for the Asper clan. In other words, let’s not rely on a questionable economic impact study funded by the very folks who stand to gain from the development.

There should certainly also be a cap on the public’s contribution, a lesson learned most harshly by Montreal in the construction of their Olympic Stadium: built for the 1972 Olympics for a projected public contribution of $120 million, the project was finally only fully paid for in 2006, for a total tab of $1.47 billion.

The public debate over this project should be far more than just about the money invested, too. As our Premier noted in his response to the poll, a critical piece of the public debate is about whether the provincial government should enter into a public-private partnership with Asper, an issue the poll questions didn’t even touch upon. We certainly don’t want an arrangement whereby the private owners who run the stadium reap the bulk of the project’s rewards while the public sector bears the bulk of the project’s risks.

Election oracle, part 1

Image: John William Waterhouse - Consulting The Oracle (oil on canvas; 1884)

This week's Free Press/Probe election poll included an interesting addition: a voter migration matrix. This is a matrix of voters by the party they supported in one election with the party they supported (or plan to support) in a second election.

The poll data showed 2007 provincial election voting intention by reported 2003 votes cast. The poll showed for example that 64% of 2003 NDP voters plan on voting NDP again, while 9% will vote PC, 4% will vote Liberal, and 22% are undecided. The Tories appear to be keeping a greater share of their 2003 voters (69%), while the Liberals are struggling to hold their own, with just 44% of their 2003 voters intending to vote the same way this time. Twenty-nine percent of 2003 Liberals remain undecided, which is higher than for any of the other parties.

For fun, I recalculated the poll numbers to exclude the undecided and entered them into UBC's voter migration matrix election forecaster. Developed by Professor Werner Antweiler, the forecaster projects the voter migration numbers you enter into overall and seat-by-seat results. In response to my entry, the forecaster spit out an election prediction of 44.5% NDP, 39.4% PC, 12.8% Liberal, and 3.3% other, which isn't unreasonable.

The forecasted seat-by-seat results showed 35 NDP, 22 Conservatives, and zero Liberals. Fort Garry is predicted to shift from NDP to PC, while the Liberals are predicted to lose Inkster and River Heights, the former to the NDP and the latter to the PCs. Tight holds for the NDP were shown in St. Norbert, Seine River, and Radisson, while Minnedosa remained a tight hold for the PC. Other expected tight races generally weren't.

The calculator's weakness is that it applies voter migrations universally across all constituencies: in reality, voters may swing in greater numbers or to different parties in some regions than in others. It also can't account for the effect of "star" candidates, the added name recognition that comes with incumbency, the degree of effort put into winning by a party or candidate, or local issues. The numbers I entered also didn't take into account the weakness of the Liberals, who are holding less than half of their 2003 vote and whose intended voters this time are by far the softest of any party's.

For years, I've played with how shifts in party support province-wide translate into shifts at the constituency level. I'm always surprised at how the shifts are generally parallel despite so many local factors that must also play a role. For example, if a party increases their province-wide support by one-fifth (say, from 20% to 24%), it's likely that the same proportional increase will materialize in each constituency (say, from 5% to 6% and from 40% to 48%). An Excel-based calculator I created that does this automatically provides a good baseline for making seat-by-seat predictions. A consideration of incumbency, the level of effort a party is putting into a seat, and regional trends or local issues has to be made as well, but amazingly, these usually account for less than 5% of the vote, according to some studies that try to weigh the impact of these variables.

Right now, I'm predicting province-wide totals of about 45% NDP, 40% PC, and 14% Liberal, with relatively little change in seats between the parties. The NDP could lose a non-Winnipeg seat or two to the Tories, but then make up for it by picking up Inkster or Kirkfield Park. I'll profile the seats I expect to change hands or be close races over the next couple of days.

Strategically-speaking, the Tories simply must close the seat gap between the NDP and themselves (a difference of 15 in 2003) to come out of the election looking at all credible and able to challenge in 2011. If the Tories fail to pick up any seats outside the Perimeter Highway from the NDP, who then pick up one or two inside the city, it'll be completely devastating for Manitoba's party of the right. Tories tend to be a lot harder on their leaders than do New Democrats, so I think Hugh will be in for a very rough ride if he doesn't pull off victories in at least a couple of seats they don't already hold.

Those are all my thoughts for a late Friday evening. There'll almost certainly be more to say tomorrow.

Sweat on Hugh McFadyen's brow

The big pre-election Free Press/Probe poll was released today, with good news for the NDP and bad news for the Conservatives: results are 44% NDP, 37% PC, 16% Liberals, and 3% Other. That leaves the Hugh McFadyen and the Conservatives only five days -- including one long weekend -- to make up the gap before Tuesday's election.

Liberal numbers

The first thing I looked at was the Liberal numbers, because they'll play a major role in whether the NDP picks up or loses seats. If the Liberal numbers are up, it likely means that soft NDP voters in the suburbs are leaning Liberal and, consequently, that Tories are likely to win seats there. If Liberal numbers are down, the NDP tends to benefit, and that makes Tories seats more likely to go NDP.

At 16%, the poll pegs the Liberals at higher than the 13% they received in the last two elections. In Winnipeg, where the Liberals' only hopes are, they are at 17%, just a hair ahead of where they were in 2003. That likely means good things for the NDP's chances in Winnipeg's suburbs. Liberal numbers are not high enough for them to win more than two seats.

Winnipeg vs. non-Winnipeg

In the last provincial election, the NDP gained 53% in Winnipeg, compared to the Tories' 30% and the Liberals' 16%. Polls for Winnipeg now put the NDP at 51%, compared to the Tories 29% and the Liberals' 17%. If these numbers hold, it probably means that NDP incumbents in close Winnipeg seats like Fort Garry and Radisson will be safe. As well, since the party is holding its 2003 base, the numbers should also be a shot in the arm to NDP efforts to pick up Kirkfield Park and Southdale from the Tories and Inkster from the Liberals.

Outside Winnipeg, numbers are not as positive for the NDP. The poll puts them at 34%, down from the 46% they took in 2003. This drop in NDP numbers appears to have benefited both the Conservatives, at 49% (up from 44% in 2003), and the Liberals, at 15% (up from 9%). If these numbers hold, it puts several non-Winnipeg NDP seats at risk of going Conservative. In particular, Brandon West, Dauphin-Roblin, and La Verendrye are likely to be close. Minnedosa and Portage, both seats the NDP would like to pick up, are now likely out of reach.

Other parties

Other parties sit at about 3%. Two-thirds of this is Green Party support. The problem with this is that the Greens are running only in about one-quarter of Manitoba's constituencies: if 3% walk off to the polls fully expecting to vote Green, 3/4 are going to be disappointed with a ballot that has no Green candidate. These voters are probably a lot more likely to vote NDP than Conservative, which may make all the difference in several close seats. After the votes are counted, others are likely to get only about 1%, the same percentage as in 1999 and 2003.

Seat-by-seat predictions

Coming in the next couple of days.