National Post: The picture of beaming Conservative MPs sporting new Quebec Nordiques hockey jerseys on Wednesday was worth a thousand words of political insight. Canadian taxpayers, it seems obvious, are about to sink almost $200 million deeper into deficit to finance a giant hockey arena in Quebec’s “national” capital to help land a second NHL hockey team for the province, in exchange for more Conservative seats. The signs are not even subtle. Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s lapdog MPs would never pose in such a giddy thumbs-up stance without first getting the go-ahead from above. And there’s no way they’d get clearance from the PMO, where this contentious file now sits, unless Mr. Harper was setting up great expectations for a cash delivery. It was instructive that Quebec MP Maxime Bernier, who opposes public handouts for private enterprise, was missing from the photograph and e-mailed me a curt ‘no comment’ when asked about the merits of federal support for the arena.
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