On the Oct. 13 edition of Global’s Focus Ontario, hosts Leslie Roberts and John Tory speak with former Liberal MP Dennis Mills, President and CEO of Racing Future Inc., about the Ontario Liberals’ decision to end the $1.1 billion-generating OLG Slots-At-Racetrack revenue sharing partnership with the horse racing industry.
“I totally agree with John that the government miscalculated on this file,” said Mills during the segment. “They were give bad information from OLG. They never did a cost-benefit analysis on what it was really going to cost the treasury. Since the Conservative government 14 years ago set this partnership up the treasury of Ontario has taken in $14 billion. It’s a universe of 55,000 full and part-time jobs. And one thing you need to know about city people, I’ve represented city people for 16 years in the parliament of Canada, and when city people understand unfairness in rural Ontario, they will get involved and they will get behind the farmers and the men and women who work for anywhere between $10,000 a year to $80,000 a year seven days a week. We hope that the government realizes that they received bad information and we hope that they will correct it.”
Mills pointed out that he supports a Toronto casino, but revenue won’t be produced for at least three or four years and the government would benefit from maintaining a partnership with horse racing.
“Why would the treasury walk away from a guaranteed $1 billion?” he asked.
“John I’m not being dramatic when I tell you that the city people who were running this file at both the OLG and the province do not understand the cycle it takes to breed horses.”
Mills explained that when the announcement was made in March this year to end the Slots program that an immediate freeze was put on breeding industry and resulting in a drop at the yearling sales of 40 per cent on the thoroughbred side and 60 per cent on the standardbred side.
“The implosion is in progress right now,” said Mills.
“It’s very important that the government take firm action and reinstate the purse structure that was in place,” he said, adding that if the government felt there were flaws in the partnership, they should have negotiated with the horse racing industry to improve the partnership rather than ripping up the deal.
Mills admitted he was blind-sided by decision and said it was a mistake for the treasury of Ontario as no other instrument in the provincial government generates $1.1 billion a year for the treasury.
“I think that the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation, naturally obsessed with their Toronto casino, had no idea of the disruption they were going to cause by informing the government that there’s easy money for you by trying to take the $325 million from the existing partnership,” said Mills. “Hopefully, everybody has seen that this is a mistake.”
OLG’s Paul Godfrey and Finance Minister Dwight Duncan were invited on the show, but declined the offer.
The horse racing part of the show starts at round the 9:00 minute mark.
I suspect the windfall that
I suspect the windfall that Tanenbaum will get from his revitalized Bingo Halls is small potatoes compared to how much he may benefit from a major Toronto Casino. As Godfrey said in a Star article a year or so ago - Tanenbaum's footprint is everywhere in the city of Toronto. He's been promoting a downtown Toronto Casino for some time and has expressed interest in making a bid - don't know if he has yet, but you can bet that he'll benefit bigtime - if not directly than likely as a partner with some other group.
Mr. McGinty has not got the
Mr. McGinty has not got the smarts to reverse the SARP program. This guy has dug himself an almost irreversible financial hole. The Ontario residents both city and country are going to pay huge for this guys financial mistakes for the next hundred years. If only the truth were known. It will rise to the surface but the Liberal party like the liberal party federally will be long gone. We can only hope we have a change of government in Queen's park in the very near future. Just thinking out loud. Bruce T. Winning
Given that there has been no
Given that there has been no plausable explaination or reason for the Liberal's decision to cut over 1 billion per year from the provincial government's coffers, it occurs to many of us in the racing industry that the OLG and the casinos/bingo hall owners are in cahoots and have been for some years. They have concocted a plan to eliminate the competition-SARP-the leading OLG revenue producer each year for the past 10 years or more. The fact that Larry Tanenbaum now holds the deeds for most of the once-derelict bingo halls is a pretty good indicator that there has been collusion between the OLG and private "investors". Paul Godfrey's close association with Mr. Tanenbaum is most definitely a topic of concern and interest, given the fact that the OLG's modernization plan is promoting the expansion of gambling in bingo halls. As for the likes of some of the casino owners such as Pansy Ho of MGM and her connections to Chinese criminal activities through her father, Stanley Ho, along with the Sands International connections being under investigation for money laundering and bribery, it leaves one with a very sick feeling in one's stomach.
This government has squandered so many billions of our tax dollars (one scandal after another) throughout their reign of terror that they are desperately looking for ways to bail themselves out of trouble before another election. As Mr. Mills states, they may of been given bad information from the OLG and didn't take the time to do the proper analysis to make informed and wise decisions but they are now simply posturing and defending their ill-advised decisions to save face. This has already caused enormous hardships to many in the racing industry, particularly breeders and small businesses. Jobs have already been lost, foals have been euthanized, farms and businesses on the brink of bankruptcy or being sold.
There has been no need for any of this. The partnership that the government had with the racing industry was a win/win situation that generated 60,000 jobs, contributed to hundreds of related agricultural businesses, gave thousands of horses good homes and a vocation, put billions of dollars into the economy, supported host municipalities and kept local taxes down. How much better does it have to be to satisfy the greed of Mr. McGuinty and Mr. Godfrey? Do they not realize that the money that more gamblers put into casinos and bingo halls will simply be money that doesn't go into other commodities? With the SARP, the money stayed predominantly in Ontario and circulated back into our economy. With international and private ownership, where will the bulk of the revenue end up? Out of country. Yet another huge loss for Ontario and Canada that we can ill-afford.