In her first public comments since the dramatic dismissal, Wynne said she and Godfrey disagreed on how much Toronto could be paid to host a casino and how horse racing should be part of the province’s gaming industry.
“Mr. Godfrey had a fundamentally different take on integrating the horse racing industry and the fairness of the hosting formula across the province,” Wynne told reporters.
“I was clear there wouldn’t be any special deals for Toronto,” the premier added Tuesday, shortly after Toronto city council voted against hosting a casino in return for $53.7 million a year in revenue from it.
A casino in Toronto or a neighbouring city is a key component of OLG’s push to modernize gambling in Ontario and bring in an extra $1.3 billion a year to provincial coffers. The OLG now pays the province $1.7 billion a year in dividends.
Wynne said the lottery corporation’s casino expansion plans across the province remain “full steam ahead” despite last Thursday’s ouster of Godfrey, a Tory who is also chief executive of Postmedia newspapers.
“The strategy will stand on its own . . . the changes were not contingent on a Toronto-based casino,” the premier insisted.
After Godfrey was fired, complaining he had not been given a reason, the board of directors at OLG resigned en masse, forcing the government to name an interim board of senior civil servants.
The abrupt changes prompted criticism from Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak that Wynne’s government is in “disarray” over gambling strategy, which also saw previous premier Dalton McGuinty decide to end the $345 million paid to racetracks annually to host slot machines.
That angered tracks, horse breeders and their suppliers, causing a furor in rural Ontario, where the Liberals lost seats in the 2011 election — a factor in Wynne naming herself agriculture minister to help mend fences.
The minority Liberal government is working on ways to pour more support back into horse racing.
Original Article
Source: thestar.com
Author: Rob Ferguson
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