“It almost enraged me to hear that speech from Dwight Duncan. It made it sound like we were dragging $345 million right out of the taxpayers' pocket. It’s as close to a lie as you can get."

Disbelief regarding the Drummond Report's recommendation for the Ontario Government to attempt to walk away from the highly-successful slots-at-racetracks (SAR) program continues to elicit pointed comments in the mainstream media from politicians, horse-racing industry officials and horsepeople themselves.

Horseman Anthony MacDonald, whose comment above speaks volumes in regard to what he thinks of the situation, is the most recent member of the horse-racing industry to try to focus on the facts regarding Ontario's slots-at-racetrack program.

“Government is saying ‘we are not interested in the 60,000 to 70,000 jobs that are created by Ontario harness racing,’” the resident of Guelph, Ont. told Nick Oakes during an interview for his weekly column in The Guardian.

“I can’t see how making 60,000 people jobless would be something they (the government) would want to do right now. You’ll end up with a whole lot of people having to move, a bunch more going on welfare and the rest looking for shift work that just isn’t there right now.”

MacDonald went on to say, “We (the Ontario racing industry) got blindsided by a sucker punch. We invested millions of dollars in the province and now Dwight Duncan says ‘no, you don’t (racing doesn't) need that money (from the program) now.’"

(With files from The Guardian)

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