Nordic Minister Eric Girard has been working for several months to find investors and persuade the National Hockey League to return the club to Quebec.
• Read also: Legault once again invokes the return of the Nordic countries
• Read also: Bruno Marchand is ready to “facilitate” the return of the Nordic countries, but he will not invest
The finance minister in Kakast’s government has been working “since the end of the summer” for the return of the Nordic countries. He confirmed this during a brief press conference on Tuesday afternoon. He obtained this mandate directly from Prime Minister François Legault.
“The message you have to understand first is that the government is for the return of the Nordic countries and I can even tell you in English,” the minister said.
Opposition parties had just accused him of now being a “conversion” minister, as his government grapples with a crisis over the management of CHSLDs during the first wave of the pandemic.
“Simply to tell you that there is absolutely no relationship between the two,” the minister emphasized. “It was the journalists who raised the issue with the prime minister during the discussion of the formation of the Minor Hockey Committee,” he added.
Public money
In addition, Eric Gerrard has not closed the door to financial participation from the state to support the return of the NHL team in Capital-National, without wanting to open his game.” At this point, we are really not in the details. We are at the beginning of the process. I am gathering information to understand first Why when Vegas was a team, we didn’t have a team,” he said. “For me, I’ve always been in favor of a comeback.”
Economy Minister Pierre Fitzgibbon, for his part, appears less open to an injection of public money to help acquire a professional sports team.
“We have always said that the government should create wealth, so we will not go, I think, to any sports team, to give money. There should be an economic impact in general,” Fitzgibbon said, declining to comment otherwise on this file, asserting that it is His side is a supporter of the Montreal Canadiens.
discussions
Last week, Prime Minister Francois Legault mentioned the possibility of the Nordic countries returning and the fact that he had “spoken to Gary Bateman”.
National Hockey League Deputy Commissioner and Legal Director Bill Daley confirmed this discussion to a Sportsnet reporter. The latter also indicated that the organization would be pleased to meet him. We don’t have any scheduled meetings at the moment. Yes, we still want to meet and talk to each other,” the deputy commissioner wrote.