Saturday

I find it… interesting that so many Montrealers seem content to let the billionaire class define the upper limits of their happiness. @GMolsonCHC doesn't want an @NBA team competing with his @NHL franchise? NO BASKETBALL FOR YOU! Meanwhile, I imagine the spirit of the OG John Molson egging me on, hoping Geoff eventually gets past his insecurities and stops surrounding himself with sycophants who kiss his ass while employed, only to trash him once they leave. How do I know? Ask yourself. @PKP_Qc thinks baseball is a maudit sport d'Américains? NO BASEBALL FOR YOU! Meanwhile, I imagine his father, Pierre Péladeau, urging me to be less conservative. To take bigger swings. To challenge the establishment rather than seek its permission. And Sam Bronfman? He's sending me gin and tonics before breakfast. (Read his biography.) Meanwhile, some third-generation heirs seem shocked by my audacity. Brother, your grandfather was a bootlegger who built an empire. I raise my glass to him! Dear Montrealers and Québécois: For generations, you've allowed your ambitions to be constrained by people whose ancestors took extraordinary risks to build extraordinary things. Those founders were swashbucklers. Builders. Risk-takers. They didn't ask permission to dream big. Some of their descendants inherited the fortunes, the institutions and the influence—but apparently not always the appetite for risk. And now you're supposed to settle for breadcrumbs? It took a freaking immigrant to tell you: SNAP OUT OF IT! Here's what some people still don't seem to understand. I've done what I set out to do. I've lined up anchor capital. Stadium financing. Strategic relationships. A potential site. A vision that extends well beyond bringing back the @Montreal_Expos. And I've come to accept that some people may never be secure enough to want me around once the heavy lifting is done. All good. I'll happily become Chief Curator of ASE—the Academy & Study of Entrepreneurship—and Le Musée Je Me Souviens. Because this was never about owning a baseball team, an arena or a district. It was about proving that Montréal can still think, build and dream on a world-class scale. I didn't spend 25 years building a business, largely against the odds, just to return home and be told to know my place. I love Montréal. I love Québec. Everything I've achieved, I owe in no small part to the opportunities this place gave me. And I refuse to believe our greatest days are behind us—or that our ambitions should be limited by the insecurities, preferences or commercial interests of a handful of powerful individuals. So here's the choice: Do you want someone willing to take the risks, assemble the capital and do the work to help make these dreams possible? Or do you want to keep playing the same old sycophantic game, waiting for permission from people who inherited the keys to the kingdom? Montréal doesn't belong to its billionaires. It belongs to Montrealers. Bring it. BRING IT!!!!