Council strongly rejects effort to delay new arena for Sudbury
Coun. Bill Leduc says taxpayers should have been given time to weigh in on whether they support a new facility
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By a vote of 12-1, a motion to defer discussion of a new events centre until the next election — in October 2026 — has gone down in flames.
Ward 11 Coun. Bill Leduc introduced a motion at Tuesday’s council meeting that aimed to defer a decision on the events centre until after the next municipal election.
“I’ve heard from many of our residents who want the opportunity to be heard,” he told his colleagues. “Reconsidering the decision will give us time to fulfill the promise we each made to our constituents to listen to them when it comes to a major decision like this.
“It will also give us time to make sure the evidence supports the decision to build downtown, when back in 2021, the majority of this council received a report from PricewaterhouseCoopers that compared the Shaughnessy/Minto block and The Kingsway as the two options for the new build.”
Leduc said the report concluded The Kingsway location “offers the highest economic benefit to the City of Greater Sudbury, at the lowest cost and the least amount of risk.”
Leduc said the PwC report did not support a decision to build downtown.
“We need more time to listen to our constituents, to see if there has been any significant material changes in circumstances that would reverse the PwC report,” he noted.
Leduc said before any decision is made, council has a fiduciary duty to “make sure we are making the best decision for the future of our city.”
Leduc called on residents previously to attend the April 30 council meeting in an effort to show their support for his deferral. The gallery inside council chambers was uncommonly full on Tuesday; however, as there were several important items to be discussed, including the planned cultural hub, it was difficult to discern who was present for the motion.
Once council rejected the motion, the crowd got a bit rowdy with heckles and boos aimed at councillors. Outside chambers, the dissatisfaction of a small group of residents was evident by their conversation.
As Leduc pointed out in the motion, the events centre “and its location have been ongoing and controversial questions for the City of Greater Sudbury council and the community,” adding the matter has been debated “on a number of occasions over the last several years and involves spending significant tax dollars in the amount of more than $225 million that would be supported by the tax levy.”
Leduc told The Star last month he was seeking a deferral since residents had not had enough opportunity to weigh in.
“We couldn’t afford a $215-million arena two years ago and council turned that down. When the public saw all the articles indicating a $225-million arena downtown, the public felt comfortable council was going to turn that down, again,” Leduc said.
“They were blindsided by council approving this. The people of Sudbury never had a chance to voice their opinion as to whether or not we can even afford an arena at this point in time. This isn’t about location; this is about whether we can afford something.”
His colleagues were not on board. Leduc was the only member of council to vote in favour of a deferral.
As Mayor Paul Lefebvre explained, the issue has been on city books for decades. They needed to stop talking and take action.
While about 750 people signed a petition opposing the events centre, Lefebvre said after the meeting about 30 per cent of those people are not even residents of Greater Sudbury.
“We received a petition with 750 names. We just looked at the petition and at least 25-35 per cent are not even from Sudbury,” he said. “They’re from the States, all across Ontario. At 750 names, that is less than 0.4 per cent of our community that actually took the time to sign the petition.”
While he admitted “it was a tough decision,” Lefebvre said councillors are elected to make difficult choices.
“At the same time, we’ve been debating this for the last 15 years,” he commented. “The John Rodriguez years, in 2007, that’s when it started.”
In this iteration, the topic of an events centre has been debated for nearly nine years. In November 2015, Dario Zulich presented his idea for a new arena during a large projects meeting hosted by city hall. At that time, Dalron also put forward a plan for an arena in the South End.
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