Owner Rod Bryden might finally get a tax break, but will it be enough for the Senators to stay in Ottawa?

The plan would cut the province's share of property taxes from privately owned arenas by as much as $16 million a year if local governments agree to match the reduction in their own tax rates, Finance Minister Ernie Eves told the legislature on Thursday.

Eves had to deflect suggestions that he's subsidizing the league.

"We can't solve all the problems of the NHL, and they're far more serious than just property taxes," he said.

"We do believe we have an obligation to address the issue of property taxes when it's a jurisdiction that we have some control or say over."

The province will give municipalities more flexibility in setting their own tax rates within the new tax class regarding professional sporting facilities that aren't municipally owned. Ontario will then match whatever tax reductions the municipality chooses to implement.

"The Ontario government has shown an appalling lack of principle on the property tax front and given in to the extortion," said Walter Robinson, national director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. "Why can't they reduce my property taxes to zero?"

Only four facilities in Ontario are privately owned: the Corel Centre in Ottawa, plus Toronto's Air Canada Centre, SkyDome and Maple Leaf Gardens.

The Corel Centre's tax bill is $7 million annually. Ontario could lose $16 million a year in revenues if Ottawa-Carleton and Toronto take full advantage of the offer.

"The province could be out $16 million on an annualized basis, and we'll have to make that up elsewhere or hopefully receive revenue from elsewhere," Eves said.

Senators owner Rod Bryden has said the team will have to be sold or moved unless it gets some kind of tax break.

The concession is not unlike the deal privately owned theatres in Toronto get in order to compete with those that are owned by the city, he added.

It's that deal that has aggravated Bryden, who has insisted that as a provider of entertainment, his business should be subject to the same reduction.

Bryden has also complained about a 10 percent amusement tax on sporting teams, but Eves said unequivocally Thursday there's no more room to move.

"We're not prepared to do anything further with respect to assisting the NHL at this time," Eves said.

Until the league can sort out its own problems with respect to revenue-sharing programs, exorbitant salary caps and a collective agreement with its players that remains in place until 2004, there will be no more relief, he said.

"That's at the root of the problem, and until they address that problem, there is no point in anybody else providing solutions."