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Public consultation continues about the idea of Toronto hosting a provincial casino.
But the lack of concrete information about how much money the city will receive every year by hosting a gaming house means this whole exercise is currently one of best hopes for the future.
Without clear details about a hosting fee, accompanied by some kind of agreement between Toronto and the province via Ontario Lottery and Gaming, the Crown corporation responsible for its gambling assets, to hold everyone to those details, Torontonians are being left in the dark ─ and potentially in the lurch.Our current municipal administrators are showing questionable leadership on the matter as well.
The Globe and Mail pointed out November 5 that Mayor Rob Ford has pushed ahead with a demand for public consultation without those aforementioned very important details.
And now, in the absence of those details, the estimates being used by the city and the OLG are starting to move in different directions.
In a Toronto Star story Wednesday, City Manager Joe Pennachetti said the city could expect anywhere from $30 million to $168 million as a hosting fee. The $168 million figure is based on a report by Ernst and Young using unaudited information from the OLG.
But the same story notes the OLG now expects the hosting fee to be closer to between $50 million and $100 million.
Even less helpful to Torontonians is that some groups have suggested casino revenue could be used to finance transit infrastructure, while floating numbers that neither the city nor the province are using.
In March, 2012, when the province announced that it was moving ahead with what it termed a "modernization of gaming" and that said modernization would include a casino in the Greater Toronto Area, its statement noted that new gaming initiatives could generate as much as $1 billion.
But, given that Ontario's deficit is $14.4 billion and this province is in the midst of an austerity regime that has already birthed cutbacks and public sector labour backlash, is it realistic to expect the cash-strapped province to negotiate a hosting fee that primarily benefits Toronto?
Public consultations should not have begun on a casino. Torontonians weren't given the information we need to make a real decision.
And OLG boss John Godfrey has already shown he has about as much knowledge about Toronto as residents have been provided by the province and city about a casino being located here.
Both the province and the city must step up with real hosting figures (not one single figure but a reasonable range, since it is unknown exactly how many people would use a casino in Toronto), strike a deal and show a memorandum of understanding that uses those figures to allow residents to make informed choices.
If not, a casino should not be welcomed here, be it proposed for the downtown, in the Port Lands or at Woodbine racetrack.
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