Manitoba politicians obsessed with funding a new arena in downtown Winnipeg should be fitted for a straightjacket.

Were he alive today, Freud would have diagnosed them with the edifice complex - a psychological disorder stemming from feelings of inferiority and hostility to competing urban centres with shiny new sports palaces.

After the trauma of the failed Save the Jets and the Save the NHL campaigns, you would expect politicians to shy away from another sports boondoggle. But they're at it again. All three levels of government are preparing to pump 50 million taxpayer dollars into a new downtown sports and entertainment complex.

Inability to just say no is one symptom of the disorder. Despite all the rhetoric about "downsizing" and "low-cost government", Manitoba politicians just can't resist the lure of the sports club sirens and their calls for government subsidies.

Another symptom is denial. Not self-denial. A new arena project under a politician's watch is a great ego stroke. They get to show-up at staged ribbon cutting ceremony and photo-ops to glamorize the wonders of public/private partnerships.

But our political leaders have gone into reality-denial in more ways than one. They've turned their back to their role as policy maker and legislator to play land developer. They've turned a blind eye to decaying road infrastructure and they've turned a deaf ear to cries for tax relief.

Any money taxpayers cough up to subsidize sports club owners and their teams will crowd out spending for other public services like roads and diminish hope for tax cuts. It's a question of priorities.

It won't be long before the sports club owners and their sidekick politicians churn out some shoddy economic guesswork to bedazzle the public with the so-called spin-off factor. Reports will surface from hired-gun consultants proclaiming that arenas are fantastic economic generators.

Don't buy into the hype. If the arena project were such a surefire moneymaker, the owners wouldn't need to beg for government handouts to buoy the returns on their investment.

Besides, if governments are sincerely looking for the best return on their investment, they don't have far to look. A $50 million tax cut will have a far greater simulative economic impact than any brick and mortar development.

Manitobans have been hoodwinked into believing that sports facilities can't be built without taxpayer handouts. Rubbish.

In the 1990s, Toronto's Air Canada Centre, Montreal's Molson Centre, and Vancouver's General Motors Palace were all built with no or next to no government handouts.

A subsidized sports palace is a boon to politicians, team owners and players. But it's a rotten deal for Manitoba taxpayers.

No politician in this province was elected with a mandate to fritter $50 million on an arena. Let them prove the sports subsidy is a constructive use of tax dollars by pinning the future of the project to approval by referendum.

Let the politicians of the hook and put Manitoban's feet to the fire. If they approve it, the howls of dissent will be ignored. But if the referendum fails, let's never speak of sport subsides ever again.