20,000 tears in Olympic Stadium roof, says Quebec

The potential cost of replacing the deteriorating roof of Montreal's Olympic Stadium won't be known until the issue is studied in January, Quebec Tourism Minister Caroline Proulx said Wednesday.

The potential cost of replacing the deteriorating roof of Montreal's Olympic Stadium won't be known until the issue is studied in January, Quebec Tourism Minister Caroline Proulx said Wednesday.

Speaking to reporters outside a weekly cabinet meeting, Proulx said she won't comment on a report in the Montreal newspaper La Presse that said a new roof will cost at least $750 million. The provincial cabinet will decide by January, she added, when "we'll come back to you with the cost, the timelines and everything that's involved in the potential roof replacement."

In October, Premier Francois Legault said he wants to return the stadium to its former glory -- which would include replacing the roof -- even though it would be costly.

But Proulx said Wednesday that she doesn't want to presume what the cabinet will decide to do about the roof, which has more than 20,000 holes.

"Doing work on the roof is never really the sexiest thing," she said. "If we wait any longer, in a year or two from now, the Olympic Stadium will be completely closed."

Proulx said Montreal is missing out on visits from artists like Taylor Swift, who is scheduled to perform six shows in Toronto next year, because of the stadium's condition.

The previous Liberal government announced a plan to replace the stadium's roof in 2017. With an estimated cost between $200 million and $250 million, that replacement was supposed to be completed by 2022. However, that plan was postponed by two years in 2019 because of the complexity of the work, but no new timelines have since been set.