15mil a year, jesus.

Great news that next year we will have Canada on the calendar and I bet Bernie is pulling strings behind the scenes to keep Britain on board too

Published on cbc.ca about 1 hour ago.

Montreal mayor Tremblay confirmed a tentative deal has been reached.

http://www.cbc.ca/sports/story/2009/08/13/...x-montreal.html

Indy would still be on the calendar if Bernie would've accepted TG's offer of $15M/year. Alas, Bernie only dropped his demand from $30M to $25M and *poof* it was gone.

Great news!

I love the city of Montreal.

The track, although not perfect, always brings some good racing and surprises.

This is great news.

my worst fears confirmed...



WTF? In this economy how the federal and Quebec governments think this is an acceptable practice simply boggles the mind. More patronage for Quebec while the rest of the country gets to pay for it... guess there must be an election coming up. I'm writing my MP, this is just so wrong.

You're complaining NOW? These dollars are tears in the rain compared to the patronage seen before. Go to the race and quit bitching.

send an email here and øbama might pay for the race

And I suppose the Federal and Provincial governments have never paid for anything where you live ??

Why don't you read and learn something about what's going on before bitching. Have you ever heard of GST and PST ? How much taxes do you think they will collect on those 300,000 tickets and all the other stuff the people will buy at the track, in stores, restaurants, hotels etc.

This is called good patronage because Montreal gets to have a race and I will travel to Montreal to see it. This could also be referred to as 'win-win' situation. I hope that the Feds give Quebec even more money then maybe there will be two races there and then I will go to both.

Good job mp's and mna's. See you in Montreal.

Personally; circuit GV is a must for the calender, as is Spa, and actually Indy I consider to be an important venue and a wonderful looking event. Pleased Canada will be back. Also I don't follow the slagging off of the new venues, I like them, they're different... as long as we can still keep the historic tracks. A balance is what is needed.

Canadian Press reports this morning that Montreal is on the 2010 provisional calendar which was presented to the teams today by BE.

Bizarrely enough, it looks like Bernie is now doing some arm-twisting in favor of bringing the race back while the politicians are looking for the right price and some guarantees... the situation is completely reversed from when the race was removed from the calendar

What date?? June, July ??

It's not mentionned. Nothing is final at this point.

Of course we know how he thinks, he's motivated only by his incessant greed.

Thanks to the ridiculous deal brokered to buy f1 rights by CVC, races are not chosen by popularity, they are chosen by organizer's ability to pay a $40-60M fee (FOM fee) -this fee is essential to service the multi-billion dollar debt CVC has after buying out everyone who owned bits of F1 (including Lehman Brothers). What this means is money usually needs to be provided by governments. Canada's feds paid this money in the past in part of a scandal that took down the federal government.

Bernie was blackmailing Legault, thinking he could pressure the Canadian government to pay again, but this time, the government was different and they refused. Bernie then removed the race from the calendar to follow through with his sleazy threat.

The problem: the Canadian GP had the highest television ratings of any F1 race, which means F1 lost big TV advertising revenue, which was only exacerbated by the credit and market collapse. CVC managed to buy out more of F1 after Lehman's collapse, so they renegotiated some FOM fees.

If it were up to Bernie, all races would just be in despot countries on Tilke tracks, screw tradition, and screw good racing. None of that was really considered any more -until TV ratings were threatened.

As much as I like the Montreal GP (subway to the track, and you can be in the city in an hour after a race), I wish they just told Bernie, Max and F1 to f*ck off and started a 24-hour endurance race.

The fact that Montreal is back on the schedule means Ecclestone is desperate.

Any chance of Indy returning? Gut feeling says they'll be a race in 2011 (100th anniv of the Indy 500). Will it happen? It'd be nice to have a USGP.

That being said, I think I'll go to Canada (live on the US/PQ border) for the GP this upcoming year...

The argument you've put forward is the same old song and dance echoed by those decrying the feds initial refusal to succumb to Bernie's blackmail when they lost the GP. To suggest that the revenue in GST and PST will cover what we're as taxpayers paying is ludicrous and demonstrative of an overly simplistic grasp of the current financial reality. The TRUTH is that no one is able to calculate the ancillary gain for the economy generated by the CDN GP because on ones ever bothered to capture the data to substantiate the claims made by the Montreal and PQ governments. Another truth is that hosting GP's do not create permanent employment rather, as Villes so aptly pointed out they're primarily awarded to service CVC's debt load. As taxpayers we have the right to expect that our government manage OUR money prudently, more so than ever given the current global economic situation. Paying off Bernie $40-60M for some glint of international prestige doesn't meet that standard of measure, investing that money in training and development of human capital does.

Cadence is correct.
This argument was used before and financially it just doesn't wash.
An article in the Montreal Gazette once estimated the tax flow-through to be about 5%.
That would mean the city needs to generate an EXTRA $800million in taxable activity to get $40mil back
This is about 20 times more than the estimated $35 million of additional economic activity. (Anderson Consulting 2003 estimate)
If it was only race tickets, they would need an attendance of 800,000 visitors at $100/per to break even.
So, at lets say $40 mil of additional taxable economic activity, the governments would yield $2 mil.
At best, that's all they should kick in if they want to break even.
Anything more than that is a drain on the taxpayer to the benefit of rich playboys and greedy bankers.

In 1976, the mayor of Montreal was quoted as saying; "The Olympics can no more have a deficit than a man can have a baby."
He has had to eat these words along with the $250 mil losses.
A circus for the populus is hardly ever profitable.

It is the Canadian Grand Prix...not the Quebecois Grand Prix. The business it brings is incredible, and it is a fantastic race. It showcases Montreal - which, last I heard, was in Canada. I've met tonnes of people at the races who were enamoured with the city, and naively figured the rest of Canada was similar, and booked holidays based on that. As a race fan I can't see how you'd object.

I am indeed a race fan, just not a blind one to Bernie's game. An apt analogy would be if I held a mortgage that exceeded the market value of my home would I continue to pay it, or sell-out? It's a "no-brainer" when you think about it.

and now there is a rumour of Tremblant in place of Circuit GV.

Autosport

Now I realize that Lawrence Stroll, owner of Le Circuit Mont Tremblant, is quite wealthy but seriously this would be like Road America or Elkhart Lake hosting the U.S. GP. Oh, right, that would be quite nice, wouldn't it?

Hell No! The facilities are so outdated that it makes the ruins at Machu Pichu look modern! And besides, the reason the GP is coming back to MONTREAL is for the local businesses to profit. Not some Business 145KMs north. Otherwise the City of Montreal would not pump money in to getting the race back.

they recently redid the tarmac at Montreal with some sophisticated bitumen mixture made my Shell.

Do any Montrealers know if the opposition candidates in the mayoral election support the return of the GP as incumbent mayor Tremblay does? That to me could be a real issue if he loses next month.

she support the return, no doubt. Now the lawyers are to finalised the contract with Bernie, the deal is expected to be sealed in the next week or two.

Interesting news this morning in Montreal's newspapers. Last week in Japan Ecclestone said he wanted answers to his question upon his return after the Japanese Grand Prix or else Montreal wouldn't have a race next year as reported by Autosport.

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/79155

According to the news here this morning, the "answers" that Bernie wants is a written guarantee from the Federal government that he won't pay taxes in Canada on the 75 millions (15M a year for 5 years) he's gonna receive from the governments. Sporting events have never paid taxes on those transfers but it's not written anywhere in the Canadian laws so that's not good enough for Bernie. He wants a written guarantee from the Federal Government that he (CVC I suppose, not him personally) will not have to pay taxes on that money and that is why the contract isn't signed yet.

Thanks for this update. Never misses a trick, eh?

I'm assuming that if this deal gets done, CGV will immediately begin promoting tix offers or is there already a soft non-public pre-sale for this event?

Today's La Presse quotes the Quebec revenue minister as stating that BE will not be "double taxed" on the government support. If written confirmation is forthcoming, then we should have an announcement toot sweet, non?

Nothing is 100% sure with Bernie unless it's in the past................and even then. Maybe a little explanation is in order for the benefit of those who don't live in Quebec. From what we get in the news there is two issues left preventing the signature of the contract.

1: Sales retail tax. As in any other countries, when retailers sell something they have to charge the sales taxes and remit them to the governments. Since a part of the deal made to get the race back is that Bernie becomes the promoter and gets the money from tickets sales, it seems, at least according to local newspapers, that Bernie doesn't want things that way. He wants to leave Canada with 100% of the money from the tickets and then remit the taxes to our governments himself. Needless to say, our governments aren't thrill with this idea and it looks like it's not gonna happen. Bernie will have to follow Canadian and Quebec laws and ways like everybody else.

2: The rule on double taxing prevents one from paying taxes twice on the same money. If Bernie pays taxes on the 15 Millions grants he gets every year (which I think is 10%) then he can ask for a tax credit in England. If he prefers to pay the taxes in England then the international treaties make it possible for him to get back whatever taxes he paid here in Canada. The news that Ecclestone said he didn't want to pay taxes in Canada, which was presented to the public as if he was asking for special treatment in the form of a tax credit appears to have been blown out context. What we read in the news this morning is that Bernie wants the written assurance that the process of giving him back the taxes paid will be fast and simple.

I guess he's basically asking the Canadian and Quebec governments not to do things the way he does

According to Denis Lesard in today's Montreal La Presse newspaper, all the tax issues have been resolved and an announcement should be made this week. Interesting read on who will actually pay what percentage of Bernie's ransom, with the city and its tourism association having to cough up quite a chunk of the $75 million. Expect even higher hotel rates everyone, but mark June 13th in your calenders. Great news.

Well, Hudon and her Chambre de Commerce or that euro guy from Alexandre restaurant, they want the GP that bad, they gotta pay some of it. Fair enough.

Waiting for the announcement, maybe this will be the year I break the piggy bank and bring the papa to a live race.

I love Canada for both the amazing GP and also the country, so I always use the race as the excuse for my annual visit... hopefully this means I can start planning!!

I pray this is really going to happen. I'll definitely be there in '10.

The date is not confirmed yet but when I made my hotel reservation couple weeks ago I was told that most of the rooms were already booked 2 months ago

how did you make a reservation if the date isn't confirmed?

i can always cancel it in a case there is no race next year...