Ottawa Senators owner Rod Bryden has ignited a public debate with his bombshell threat to sell his professional hockey team "unless he gets tax fairness." But before we get too worked up about the prospect of losing the team, taxpayers should look at the situation with clear minds.

To his credit, Mr. Bryden focuses on his onerous tax burden. And to be fair, the combination of amusement taxes, skyrocketing property taxes and a low Canadian dollar places him in a perilous position when compared to his American franchise counterparts. But his tax woes are not unique. All Canadian businesses are at a competitive disadvantage vis-à-vis their American competitors. Indeed, 70% of the tax burden borne by Canadian businesses, large and small, is largely profit insensitive. This is what the Mintz Committee on business taxation found when it delivered its landmark report to Paul Martin last April. The committee recommended a variety of changes to reduce the tax burden on Canadian businesses but the report is gathering dust on the Finance Minister's bookshelf. From property taxes to signage fees to special licenses to payroll taxes, Canadian governments bleed businesses dry.

Unfortunately, the civic cheerleaders in the media and elsewhere who hopped on the "Save our Sens" bandwagon haven't done Mr. Bryden any favours with their arguments, built as they are on doomsday economic hysteria instead of solid economic rationale.

Let's look at what we already funnel into the Ottawa Senators. All those corporate boxes and company owned seasons tickets are nice business development tax write-offs, partly courtesy of the Canadian taxpayer. Then there's the Government of Canada logo on outside of the Corel Centre and the Government of Canada advertising inside the arena, courtesy of Joe Q. Workingstiff. Then there's the interior advertising by Canada Post and Via Rail … paid for by you and me.

Next, let's turn to the economic impact assessments of the doomsday scenario: "the Sens leave town." Apparently, millions of dollars and hundreds of jobs will be lost. However, most of the money spent at the Corel Centre is disposable income from people who live in the National Capital Region. So if you don't have the option of going to see NHL hockey, you'll spend your money at other local sporting events, or the movies, the theatre, or a local restaurant. No one will throw the money that they currently spend on hockey into the fireplace should the Senators leave town, tragic as that would be.

Moreover, studies from respected think tanks like the Brookings Institution, the Reason Foundation, the Cato and Heartland Institutes consistently come to the same conclusion: professional sports franchises and sports stadiums have a negligible economic impact on the local economy. And this holds true whether the impact is measured in per capita income, gross sales or even total taxes paid. Probably the most compelling of these was a 1994 study by Professor Robert Baade from Lake

Forest College who studied 48 cities over a 30-year period. Of the 32 cities that saw a change in the number of sports teams, 30 saw no change in per capita income while the one saw a slight rise and the other, a small decrease.

As for the economic development spin-offs of a professional sports franchise, at best, they are a frill. Business location and expansion decisions are based on factors such as transportation links to the outside world, a well-educated workforce, local infrastructure, proximity to outstanding healthcare facilities and academic institutions, housing, safe streets, and access to community recreational facilities.

Mr. Bryden has every right to complain about his punishing tax burden. But Canadian NHL owners - like all NHL bosses - should concentrate on the number one cause of their woes, runaway player salaries. The average player grossed $270,000 (US) in 1991 compared to $1.1 million last year - a whopping 407% increase. Skyrocketing player salaries also create the downward spiral of pricing the average family out of buying NHL tickets which in turn leads to less revenue, and more red ink.

We must remember that professional sports entertainment is private business. The Ottawa Senators are not a public good like hospitals. As for those who point to the government's role in subsidizing the arts or the aerospace sector as justification for taxpayer support of another industry, our research shows that buying paintings or building jets with public money is a blatant misallocation of tax dollars as the money is never fully recouped. Directly or indirectly subsidizing millionaire hockey owners and their players would be an even more offensive use of tax dollars.

Mr. Bryden should tell his so-called "friends" who are attempting to plead his case to quit while they're behind, their interventions are doing him more harm than good.