We often hear and read about our tax dollars being used for sport and other public facilities. The current issue at hand is the potential new football stadium that David Asper is proposing for our Blue Bombers. On the sports front, we have only to go back a few years—to the 1999 Pan Am Games, when public funds helped to build Canwest Park and to 2003, when they helped build the MTS Centre.

What I wanted to know—and I’ve heard this question asked many times—is if any of the government money being put into these projects will ever come out again. There must be a plan, I believe, that says if we put in $20 million, we will get that money back over a certain period of time. If, when and how the original investment makes a return is a huge question, one we wanted to delve into in
this issue.

I know that this topic tends to divide people into two camps—those who think it’s important to fund the creation of these facilities, and those who believe the money is better spent elsewhere. Staying neutral, we decided to go after the underlying question, which is: do we want these facilities in our community and, if the business case makes sense, is it worth providing funding? While this is obviously a much bigger and more political issue than we can cover in one article, we wanted to provide some insight and thoughts from those who are instrumental in these decisions.

Continuing on the theme of sports, this issue also includes a guide to the upcoming Euro Cup soccer championships. And as sport leads to sweating—especially in summer—we also look at hyperhidrosis, and some surprising treatments for excessive sweaters.

No matter whether you’re watching a soccer match on TV, a baseball game at Canwest Park, or playing a round of golf, I hope you are staying active and enjoying all that a Winnipeg summer has to offer.