Innisfil Mayor Barb Baguley has reaffirmed her desire to see gaming remain and expand at Georgian Downs in light of the recent RFI/gaming zones announcement from Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp.
“I don’t know what their thinking may be," she said, "but if I were sitting there looking at Innisfil and saw it prosper for 10 years with very few problems, I’d be interested in it.”
Baguley's quotes have come via an article on simcoe.com. In the report, Baguley conveys that the Great Canadian Gaming Corp. and its Georgian Downs fits perfectly into what the Ontario Liberal Government is looking for under its gaming modernization plan.
“I’m very hopeful because we already have a facility that is owned and operated by (a) private sector company and they know the business as well as anybody,” she told The Journal. “We have great advantages over the other because why wouldn’t you just go where it already is.”
More of the Ontario harness-racing industry's participants are continuing to let the mainstream media know how catastrophic the Ontario Liberals' decision to walk away from the mutually-beneficial slots-at-racetracks agreement has and will be going forward.
“I’ve been in this game pretty much my whole life, since I was five or six years old," O'Brien Award winning trainer Mark Steacy has told the Ottawa Sun. He went on to say, "It’s sad if this keeps going the way it is. I’ll have to lay off staff and for some of them, they don’t know much else. Some of them are in their 40s.
“I have a stallion which was supposed to go to breed 120-130 mares this year. We’ll be lucky to get 30 now. People aren’t paying stud fees. And it’s costing breeding farms mega money.
“The ones that have already bred, they have produced beautiful baby foals, but there’s not going to be a place for them to race."
On the political front, MPPs Michael Prue and Monte McNaughton, along with Toronto Councillor Mike Layton are continuing the push for municipal referendums to decide whether casinos will be allowed.
Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty had previously preached that referendums would be necessary for any casino expansion within municipalities; although, while he was saying that, his government quietly amended the OLG Act to remove any need for a municipality to vote in favour of a casino before one could be built.
“The government seems determined to plow ahead with casinos whether people want them in their community or not,” Prue was quoted as saying at Queen’s Park this past Friday.
“On important decisions like this, people need to be heard. Instead the government plans to replace an open vote with a vague process that’s a recipe for exclusion.”