Ford himself didn’t wait for any of the speeches to the committee at City Hall on Monday. He declared before the meeting that he won’t stop pushing for a downtown gambling facility — right to the 2014 election, if city council refuses to heed him now.
“The waffling is over,” Ford told a rally of pro-casino union members. “We know which way we’re going, our team does. Now, the other councillors — it’s either no or yes. And if it’s a yes, (tell them) thank you very much, appreciate the support for creating 10,000 good-paying jobs. And if it’s a no, then I guess that becomes an election issue.”
Monday’s portion of the two-day meeting adjourned without a decision. In the first formal test of council’s support for a casino, the 13-member committee will vote Tuesday on how to proceed.
Deputy Mayor Doug Holyday said he believes the committee will choose to send the issue to a meeting of the full council in May. Other committee members have said they cannot endorse a casino without knowing how much the provincial government would give the city as a hosting fee.
Monday was reserved for deputations from members of the public on a report from city manager Joe Pennachetti. Pennachetti did not recommend either that Toronto welcome a downtown casino or reject one. Instead, he listed 43 conditions that he believes council should impose if it chooses to grant approval.
Council appears very likely to reject the downtown casino, with 22 councillors already committed publicly to the No side — one short of the 23-vote majority needed — versus only seven committed to the Yes side. Council may instead approve a casino at Woodbine racetrack.
Most of the residents in attendance on Monday — including neighbourhood association leaders, leaders of the activist group No Casino Toronto, and local businesspeople — warned that a downtown casino would hurt the city, many of them arguing that it would harm thriving local neighbourhoods like Liberty Village, cannibalize local businesses, and cause more gambling addiction.
“Would London turn Big Ben into a casino? Or would Paris, next door to the Eiffel Tower, install a mega-casino? Or would Berlin put one next to the Reichstag? All of these cities are cities that we should aspire to grow towards, and none of them have considered anything like this,” said web entrepreneur Simon Plashkes.
“Are you protectors or enablers? We expect you — we basically pay your salaries — we expect you to say: no way in hell are we going to let MGM take advantage of the people of Toronto. Not on our watch,” said Meirav Livne-Bar, the owner of a clothing boutique and member of a downtown neighbourhood association.
Dominic Tse, senior pastor at the North York Chinese Community Church, told stories of people he knows who were devastated by addiction, whom he called Peter, Mary and Nancy. “It could be hundreds of thousands of Peter, Mary, and Nancys that are at stake here,” he said. “We must say no.”
Most of the pro-casino comments came from Nevada-based operators vying for the lucrative opportunity, tourism industry representatives, and labour leaders and unionized workers who said the resort could generate much-needed jobs and protect existing jobs at Woodbine.
“We have an opportunity to take our convention and our tourism market to the next level. Great, thriving cities don’t stand still,” said Tourism Toronto chief executive David Whitaker.
Jan Jones, an executive vice-president with Caesar’s Entertainment, which wants to locate in an expanded Metro Toronto Convention Centre, noted she is a former Las Vegas mayor and said she understands the controversy around the issue.
“From 1991 to 1999, we grew from 15 million to 35 million tourists, and it was largely the result of the partnership between the convention authority and the resort association,” she said. “It’s a partnership that works.”
Bill Hornbuckle, president of MGM Resorts, brushed aside questions about MGM’s financial health — it lost $1.8 billion last year — to focus on the opportunities of a resort at Exhibition Place and Ontario Place.
“An expanded Direct Energy Centre with a new second level would bring Toronto into the top 10 convention cities in North America,” he said.
Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp. wants to build one new casino in the GTA. It has a strong preference for downtown Toronto, near the waterfront.
Woodbine Racetrack already has 250 slot machines and is lobbying to get table games. It’s in a different “gaming zone” than downtown Toronto, so theoretically both could get casinos.
Warning that 7,500 jobs at Woodbine — one in 10 in Rexdale — are at risk, Woodbine Entertainment chief executive Nick Eaves urged council to support a full casino at his site.
If a casino were instead built in neighbouring Vaughan or Mississauga, he said, “Woodbine and its employees would lose; so would the city of Toronto, in jobs, in revenue and in stature.”
Ford asked no questions of deputants and seemed intent on moving the process along. At lunch, Ford was talking to reporters while striding quickly away from the committee room when a City-TV cameraman walked backward into a wall and the mayor walked face first into the camera.
“Ah, f--- man, holy Christ,” the mayor said, grabbing his head. “Have some respect — you just hit me in the face with a camera.”
Several of the committee members asked tough questions of casino skeptics, dismissing their warnings of negative social and business effects.
But it appears few of Ford’s allies are ready to wholeheartedly endorse a downtown casino before OLG tells the city whether the hosting fee will be as high as $100 million a year or more.
Holyday — who abandoned holiday plans to attend the meeting, dropping his wife at the airport — said “nothing is concrete until it’s down in a legal binding agreement and backed up with a financial guarantee.”
“And until we see these kinds of things, it’s kind of hard to make up your mind on what it is you’re dealing with,” Holyday said.
City council will have the final say, likely in May.
Original Article
Source: thestar.com
Author: David Rider
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