Just as the City of Toronto's public consultation website to gauge public sentiment regarding proposed full-blown downtown casino expansion went live, an Ontario Councillor was in the process of sounding the alarm bell on the process, generally.
The Councillor has claimed that his municipality opted into the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp.'s controversial gaming modernization plan in 2012 without a true, sufficient gauge of the public sentiment.
The Toronto Star has reported that toronto.ca's Toronto Casino Consultation Page went live Thursday, January 3. As the article explains, the consultation page contains a survey which features 11 questions asking for residents feelings about the expansion of gaming in the Megacity (the site will be taking in feedback on the issue until Friday, January 25).
The report also states that Toronto's public consultation process will kick off next week (January 9), as five public sessions, scheduled through until Saturday, January 19 have been planned. It also states that the Toronto and East York Community Council will be holding its own meeting (Friday, January 11) on the subject (please click on the Toronto Star story to get the complete meeting schedule).
It appears to be purely coincidental that as the City of Toronto rolled out its online feedback page, Whitby Councillor Joe Drumm was in the process of sounding off in a durhamregion.com report.
The article has quoted Drumm as saying that after under unannounced, deadline-based pressure from the OLG, Whitby Council declared the Town of Whitby a willing host municipality to the OLG's 'modernization' plan without adequate public consultation.
"All we had is one virtual town hall meeting in the middle of summer, simply because OLG was deciding it was in a hurry we had to do it," Drumm was quoted as saying.
Drumm, who recently filed an ultimately-futile motion for a town referendum on the issue, was quoted as saying that the possible gaming expansion in the town is "the biggest change, in my opinion, that we'll see in two decades in Whitby, and I thought people of our community should have the opportunity to say 'yes' or 'no.'"
The Councillor went on to add, "While I accept that council had to make a decision because of the pressure put on us by OLG ... I think now, in the cool, clear light of dawn, we should be asking the people."
(With files from the Toronto Star and durhamregion.com)