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Originally Posted by someone123
It's a bit odd that there is so much concern about public spending on stadiums in Canada yet publicly-funded arena projects are common.
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Arenas do tend to be well used... hockey sort of replaces soccer in the Canadian sports firmament relative to the rest of the world. No matter the size of your town, you're going to have a hockey team. From NHL down the ranks through AHL, major junior, junior 'a', junior 'b', junior 'c', high school, midget AAA, etc. So if you have an arena, it will be used.
By contrast stadiums (as opposed to mere soccer/football fields) tend to be necessary only for teams playing at the top flight of competition in Canada. MLB, CFL and MLS teams need big stadiums. Minor league baseball, USL (or its equivalents) and CIS football teams need small stadiums. Then beyond that you don't really need a stadium. Moncton is a fairly rare example of a Canadian municipality that built a legitimate stadium without a major user.
That said, the cities that need stadiums tend to have them. Halifax is really the only place I can think of in Canada where lack of a facility is really the only reason it doesn't already have pro teams in football and soccer.