Council set to debate Woodbine gambling expansion
Council begins meeting Tuesday. On the agenda is expanded gambling at Woodbine Race Track

thestar.com
July 6, 2015
By Betsy Powell

Proponents, including Mayor John Tory, will argue a full-blown casino will bring badly needed jobs to northwest Toronto, an area of the city that has seen a 26 per cent decline in employment in the last decade.

“I don’t view the expansion of gaming as an end unto itself, I view it as a possible catalyst to attracting other kinds of jobs and investment,” Tory said Monday.

The operator picked to run the facility will have to be committed to investing in other development, including entertainment complexes, convention facilities and hotels, the mayor said.

But councillors opposing gaming expansion at Woodbine are skeptical that a casino will act as an economic stimulus, and suggest, in fact, it could have a negative impact.

“We should be looking for economic development up there, but I think we can do better than a casino that just fleeces and sucks money out of the local economy,” Councillor Mike Layton, who represents a downtown ward, said Monday.

Among the “no” votes at this week’s council meeting will be three members of Tory’s hand-picked executive committee: Deputy Mayor Denzil Minnan-Wong and Councillors James Pasternak said Paul Ainslie.

Last week, during a late night session at city hall on the eve of Canada Day, the committee voted 10-to-3 to support expanded gambling at the 680-acre site.

Pasternak said Monday not only is he unconvinced that a casino will be a “sustainable economic driver,” he also shares the concern of others about the potential social costs of gambling.

“If it’s expanded into a larger casino complex, they will hire more people but the question is … are you really creating new economic activity or is it siphoning off existing dollars, putting them in a blender and spewing them out again.”

Last week, Jim Lawson, Chief Executive Officer, Woodbine Entertainment Group, told members of the executive committee that the facility already has 5,000 employees. Gambling expansion is critical to protecting those and other jobs, he said.

Gambling at Woodbine “undeniably protects the horse racing and breeding industry and ensures thousands of existing jobs,” Lawson said. Woodbine hosts 260 thoroughbred and standardbred racing days per year.

But Rob Simpson, former CEO of the Ontario Problem Gambling Research Centre, told the committee last week that for every casino job created, an estimated 2.4 jobs could be lost elsewhere in Toronto’s hospitality and leisure industry.

The OLG estimates that expanded gaming could generate at least $805.4 million in new revenue annually. That could pump an additional $7 million to $11 million into city coffers for a total of between $22.5 million to $26.5 million.