I’ve put off writing this month’s article as long as possible as I still felt we had a small glimmer of hope, in Ontario, with the vote of today’s budget. I thought I could write to our membership with good news, with hope for the future; however that will not be the case. In today’s (June 20) legislative vote for the Ontario budget, the NDP Party has abstained from voting. This leaves us hanging in the balance for the time being.

Meetings with the “Transitional Funding Committee” are well under way, with many industry participants pleading our cases, and trying to get the government to understand exactly what they have done to Ontario, to Canada to racing in North America. Standardbred Canada’s website is so up to date with current news, it is unnecessary for me to go into much further detail here. Having said that, I have read many of your comments on the Standardbred Canada website, and each and every one of you has a valid beef about the Liberals, the NDP and the Conservatives. You have offered your opinions on what the Liberals have done wrong. You have questioned how things proceed from here and expressed disbelief on how the government can do this to us when we have done nothing wrong but make money for the province. All your comments have merit.

Many people have lent their time and efforts to the campaign. Please believe me when I say, that even though some people are not as public and in the limelight about fighting this fight they have been there every step of the way, pleading, educating, meeting and explaining exactly what will happen to our beloved industry. There has been a tremendous amount of hours put into this fight, from many many people in our industry. I couldn’t even begin to tally how many hours of meetings, letter writing, consultations, facebook comments, blogs, and newspaper articles have gone into our crusade. Just because you don’t see their names, doesn’t mean they don’t care.

Standardbred Canada is getting ready again for Board of Directors meetings in July. There will be several different items on the agenda including by-laws, breeding issues, O’Brien Awards criteria, taxation and we’ll also be appointing a new Western Track Director.