Ontario’s new gambling strategy is horse manure

Ontario’s new gambling strategy is horse manure
By John Snobelen ,Toronto Sun

Lotteries are a tax on dreams. Or hope. Or something worse, like desperation.

Who would seek to profit from deceptive dreams, false hopes and desperate people? Your government.

Consider all those wonderful ads with dancing, happy people the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation (OLG) uses to push lottery tickets. The truth is lotteries are a voluntary way to pay taxes. Taxes generally don’t make people want to dance.

But governments view taxing as the art of plucking the most feathers with the least amount of screeching. If taxing dreams makes some people at least temporarily blissful, governments are more than happy to provide the opportunity.

In fact, given last week’s announcement of a “modernized” gaming industry, the government of Ontario is delighted to encourage more Ontarians to lose even more money.

Last week, Finance Minister Dwight Duncan rolled out OLG Chair Paul Godfrey to announce a dramatic expansion of gambling in Ontario.

Forget the concerns of local communities or debate in the Legislature. The government made the announcement of radical changes to gaming as a fait accompli.

Duncan doesn’t have the time to have a public debate on the merits of expanding gaming. He needs the cash.

The government is booking $1 billion in additional tax revenue from the new scheme. That’s $1 billion in cost savings the spendthrift Duncan won’t have to find.

All of this had to be a little embarrassing to Godfrey. After all he was compelled to announce the expansion of gambling has been driven by changes in the gaming industry and a need to contribute more money to health care and education. Don’t step in that Paul, you’ll never get it off your shoes.

Godfrey has been around long enough to know better. Every previous government has constrained gaming, at the cost of increased revenue, out of respect for community concerns.

That’s why there isn’t a casino in Toronto. But there will be soon. Because Duncan needs the cash.

The Mike Harris government rejected the most profitable gaming technologies, like video lottery terminals, because of the potential social harm. Harris introduced slot machines in racetracks where gaming was already a normal community activity.

Harris agreed to share the revenue from slot machines with the horsemen so the racehorse industry would not be harmed by the imposition of slots. Duncan doesn’t care about horses or horsemen. He just wants more cash.

The local communities around the tracks also took a share of the slot revenue. Towns like Milton have benefited from the extra dough. But Duncan doesn’t care about the host communities either. He just wants more cash.

Godfrey and Duncan talked a lot about the benefits to education and health care from all the extra revenue that will come from having more lottery outlets and more casinos. They both know that’s not true.

The additional cash will go towards paying down Duncan’s $16-billion deficit.

And what about the 2,300 new jobs Duncan claims more gambling will bring to Ontario? I wonder if some of those jobs will go to the 60,000 people who will be thrown out of work by the death of the racing industry?

There is a dark side to gaming Duncan didn’t talk about. Addiction. Broken homes. Shattered lives.

I guess none of that is worth mentioning. Duncan needs more cash.

I’m not suggesting Ontario doesn’t need a new gaming strategy. But I believe changes to gambling should be discussed with people across Ontario and not simply imposed by the OLG.

It seems having an honest conversation about gaming would be inconvenient for Duncan. After all, he just wants your cash.

— Snoblen is a former cabinet minister in the Mike Harris Conservative government