When Amir Khadir dines out in Quebec City these days, he might want to take along a food taster.
As the only member of the National Assembly for the Montreal-based Québec solidaire party, Khadir is also the only MNA with no partisan interests to defend in the provincial capital.
That has left him free to announce that he will block the adoption before the Assembly's summer recess of a bill that Quebec City Mayor Régis Labeaume says is crucial to the provincial capital's bid for a National Hockey League franchise.
The bill would ensure the legality of a three-month-old agreement between the city and Quebecor Media, giving the latter management and naming rights for the city's future new arena for 25 years.
A former city manager, Denis de Belleval, went to court this week to have the agreement nullified on the grounds that the lease is illegal, since it was awarded without a public bidding contest open to all comers.
But Khadir is not as isolated as it may seem.
The caucuses of the two main parties in the Assembly are divided over the Parti Québécois bill and the arena project itself, which is entirely publicly financed.
And in committee hearings on the bill this week, pointed questions were asked by independent MNAs Éric Caire and Marc Picard and Liberal Raymond Bernier, in addition to Khadir.
This week's hearings stripped away all official pretence that the project has any other purpose than satisfying the NHL's demand for a new arena before it will even consider locating a franchise in Quebec City.
And they made it appear as though Labeaume circumvented the conventional open bidding contest because he wanted to make sure that the arena lease went to Quebecor and not the latter's rival, Bell Media.
Quebecor wants an NHL franchise in Quebec to provide content for its media, including the cable sports channel it announced this week, which will compete with Bell's RDS.
After Quebecor boss Pierre Karl Péladeau lost his bid to buy the Montreal Canadiens in 2009, he turned his attention to Quebec City and began talking to the NHL about getting a franchise there.
That would break the Quebec monopoly of the Canadiens, whose French-language television rights are owned exclusively by RDS.
Labeaume has previously suggested that major financial interests might back a legal challenge of the Quebecor lease.
And he told the committee that a public call for sealed bids might have resulted in the lease being awarded to interests "with the corporate objective of blocking any hockey team from coming to Quebec City."
Labeaume said the city's negotiator privately received only two "overall" final bids to manage the arena, from Quebecor and another bidder he did not identify.
But Péladeau, who followed Labeaume before the committee, confirmed that the other bidder was Bell, which he said had put up "fierce" competition for the lease.
Péladeau threatened to exercise his right to back out of the lease if the Assembly does not pass the bill before it adjourns for the summer next Friday, which Khadir is blocking.
And Labeaume implied that if that happens, it would jeopardize the arena project itself, and therefore Quebec City's chances of getting an NHL franchise.
Péladeau and Labeaume appear to have two things to fear.
One is that uncertainty about the legality of the lease would scare off the NHL.
(This raises the question of whether the NHL, which is a business partner of the Canadiens and, through RDS, of Bell, would allow a second Quebec franchise to break their monopolies.)
The other is that a successful challenge would force Quebec City to put the lease up for sealed bids, in a contest that Quebecor might lose.
dmacpherson@ montrealgazette.com
Twitter: @MacphersonGaz