Readership of this paper is excellent. Please consider it "open access" Let's republish it widely. (with attribution please)

Councillor McConnell on a Downtown Toronto casino. A letter to her Toronto constituents.

Toronto is consistently rated as one of the top cities in the world. I do not support any proposal that will diminish Toronto. I will not support a Downtown casino.

Over the last several months, I have spoken to many residents in Ward 28 and have received numerous calls and messages about the proposal to locate a casino in downtown Toronto. The vast majority of residents and business owners are very worried about a casino in Toronto and the resulting social impact and the affect on our community. I share these concerns, and I feel that the negative aspects far outweigh any perceived benefit.

One of the key arguments in favour of a casino continues to be the employment opportunities , with the promise of hundreds of jobs in both the construction and hospitality industries, along with various spin-off jobs. These jobs are very important to the city's economy and to our community. However, I feel that we can achieve this goal without relying on a casino as the catalyst. With the Pan and ParaPan Am Games, we are experiencing an exciting boom that is accelerating the build-out of the West Don Lands community. This development, along with the sporting event itself, will create substantial benefits in the years to come. We should continue to follow this model and work towards expanding our job base through attracting events, investment, and businesses that bring positive and healthy benefits to the city as a whole.

In addition, it seems unlikely that a casino will increase tourism. Toronto already has a strong tourist industry, based upon Toronto's vibrant arts, culture, and events, as well as attracting conventions to our various facilities. Events like Nuit Blanche, the Caribbean Carnival, and Pride attract visitors and bring tourist dollars from around the world, without the need for a casino. A casino would do little to add to this industry, and with a large number of casinos around the world, Toronto will never become a casino destination. The best way to increase tourism is to enhance marketing the city and our unique attractions.

A compelling argument in favour of a casino is the perceived financial benefit, but I feel that these have been greatly overstated. First, the majority of revenues generated by a casino will not stay inside the city, with a significant portion going to the casino operator. Second, the property tax revenue would come to the City regardless of the type of development on a site, and a casino would not necessarily increase the taxes received.

Meanwhile, the amount of funds that would come to the City through hosting fees has not been finalized and varies wildly, but it does not constitute a substantial windfall. In fact, the most relevant experience the City of Toronto has in this area is with the Woodbine racetrack, where the City's total take is only $18 million per year. Most recently, the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation (OLG) refused to negotiate better terms with the City around bingos, which will see the City's share of revenue decrease while the OLG takes a larger cut. The $100 million to $200 million per year hosting fee that has been suggested has never been realized in any North American city, and it most certainly will not be the case here.

Finally, the City would only receive funds from land sales or leasing if it involved City lands. The question then becomes whether a casino is the best use of City property. Once this land is handed over - either in a sale or a lease - it will essentially be gone forever, and it will limit the types of development that can happen around it. The CEO of Waterfront Toronto has recently confirmed that a casino in the Port Lands will restrict the vision for the area; residential buildings will not be built in proximity and some businesses and other functions will not locate nearby. Also, the Chair of the CNE has publicly stated that a casino at Exhibition Place would essentially shut down all other uses, and that the proposal that has been put forward would have the same footprint equal to four times the Direct Energy Centre.

Meanwhile, I'm concerned that the negative impacts are being minimized. Problem gambling has severe repercussions on individuals -- in addiction, mental illness, and financial hardship -- which becomes a problem for the entire community -- including the social supports required to address the problems. I recently spoke to an individual, whose recreational gambling gradually became a full addiction, leading from financial security to being on the verge of losing housing. This heart wrenching story, like others I've heard, underscores the potential threat, and I strongly feel that we should not set "acceptable" thresholds to the social cost, or dismiss the harm because of some financial benefit.

The damage caused by a casino extends into the urban fabric . Along with the extensive parking requirements and the additional cars that would be added to our current congestion, by their nature, casinos do not add to street animation. These facilities are windowless and separated from the public realm, creating a wasteland on the street. With its size and configuration, a casino in the downtown would resemble a big box retail outlet.

Finally, residents have expressed frustration with the City's consultation process. Many felt that the open house format at the first consultation discouraged the sharing of comments and limited input. I was also concerned about the number of casino lobbyists that easily moved through the room, attempting to pressure residents into supporting a casino proposal. Following that first meeting, I pressed the City Manager to make changes to the meeting format, which was done for subsequent consultation sessions. I also expressed concern that the reliance on written feedback limits expression and creates a barrier to those who are not comfortable with written communications or do not have English as a first language.

Let us be very clear about what this casino proposal is all about. The OLG did not suggest a casino in Toronto as a way to help the City address any financial difficulties. This proposal is entirely about the provincial government grappling with its own finances. While Toronto -- like every other municipality -- is required to have a balanced budget, with borrowing for only capital expenses, the province is struggling inside a fiscal hole for operating costs. In other words, the City borrows only for its mortgage while the province is paying for groceries on the credit card.

The province wants a casino to work its way out of a $11.9 billion deficit. After downloading child care, affordable housing, and other social services onto municipalities, it is running out of ways for municipalities to cover the province's obligations. Without any other ways to feed off the City's property tax base, it is now seeking to feed off the City's property.

Toronto is consistently rated as one of the top cities in the world for investment, for livability, and as a tourist destination. A casino would add no value to what makes residents most proud of their city. On the contrary, the negative implications can only defeat all of the effort we have expended to create a vibrant city. And we need to ask ourselves what sort of city we want to leave for future generations. Do we want Atlantic City or New York City? Do we want Biloxi or Boston? Do we want Las Vegas or San Francisco?

I do not support any proposal that will diminish Toronto. I will not support a Downtown casino.

The role of government is to protect and promote the public good. The public good cannot be measured as a simple dollar figure on an account ledger's bottom line. The public good is about making smart and considered decisions that promote and enhance the health and livability of our communities - good planning, good programs, good services, good jobs. A casino does not fit inside this equation.

Government should never be about exploiting weaknesses for financial gain, and governments must do better than simple subtraction to determine if the benefits outweigh the drawbacks. Does the health and well-being of families and communities matter less than a sum of money?

I encourage everyone to consult with your own councillor in preparation for the March 2013 Executive meeting. Your input is vital to ensuring that our Toronto continues to prosper as a vibrant and diverse world-class city.

This is a fascinating article and I learned a great deal -- thank you. I have a suggestion and a disclosure of bias. I believe state-sponsored gambling, especially as advertised in Ontario, is morally reprehensible. I believe in free-markets and freedom, but this is anti-thetical to freedom and free-markets and the spirit of healthcare in all ways. Vastly more intelligent and eloquent people than I have said this. **Herewith a contrarian suggestion to make a bold statement against this monstrosity: leaders of taxpayer-funded research units in gambling and addictions across Canada should shut themselves down. Yes, put yourselves out of a job. There is a shameful conflict of interest between researchers receiving legislated funding from the state when there is knowing complicity in the addictive nature of this activity, and the ways in which the state, ostensibly in support of equity in healthcare, winks at the trickery alluded to in this article. The suggestions in this article are sound and evidence-based. But to make a statement and a difference that is more powerful, the taxpayers should not support research that is paid for by morally dubious behaviour sanctioned by the state. If the taxpayer-funded research units stand together and do not accept dirty money, then the public will finally wake up to reality -- and the state will not be able to hang its hat on an absurd moral defence that it is reserving portions of winnings for research into the very behaviours it is is abetting.

Neil,
Does your argument hold for taxes generated by the sale of cigarettes, booze and horse betting, and fines stipulated by the judicial system for bad behavior of another kind -- these cannot be used for research either?

I am gratified to read the thoughtful commentary on my article. After its publication, I calculated the revenues that the proposed mega casino would extract from the local Toronto economy – it amounted to $1 billion annually. Using the “turn-over rate” currently realized in Ontario, only 35% will go to government and the remainder will be lost to operations. Profits, of course, are a component of operations and that is why the American casino companies are our new best friends.
Equally important is where the $1 billion will come from. The available evidence is that it is reallocated from other consumer expenditures, the most likely candidates being expenditures on entertainment and leisure activities. I was able to obtain a Statistics Canada table of entertainment and leisure expenditures for Waterloo Region ($840 million annually) and compared them to my estimate of annual revenue from the proposed casino ($180 million, net of current gambling expenditures). This analysis suggests that the proposed casino will extract 22% of current expenditures on entertainment and leisure, categories which include: performing arts, spectator sports, heritage institutions, amusement and recreation industries, accommodation services, food services, and drinking places. An extraction of this magnitude will certainly create substantial job loss and business failure, and is the real story behind the impact of gambling expansion.
This type of analysis is consistently concealed from public debate, where expansion advocates make unsupported assertions about job creation and economic stimulation without ever accounting for the offsetting harm. The correct analysis shows that far less is put back into the local economy than is extracted.
Finally, I’d like to respond to Neil’s point. I was the CEO of the provincial body charged with gambling research, which was set up at arms-length and courageously funded “inconvenient” research (e.g., the proportion of revenue coming from problem gamblers). There were two responses. First, the Centre was threatened with the cancelation of funding if it refused to allow more government control over research funding decisions. These threats were directly tied to my leaving. Second, the extensive body of research on how to reduce gambling harm was invariably disputed or simply ignored. In gambling, there is no such thing as evidence-based policy.

Thank you Anton. I'm not aware that private cigarette companies donate to government-controlled research taking place in taxpayer-funded hospitals/ research units — except for rare one-off projects to private researchers, which of course need to be declared as clear conflicts in journals, etc. Not sure if gambling and addictions research units that are government-funded see themselves or present themselves as in conflict — which they are as per my comments.

Nor do I know how LCBO-apportioned taxes currently go to addictions-related research and the governance of LCBO currently is beyond my ken. Of course alcohol is different from cigarettes on the fundamental issue — you can enjoy some alcohol without any ill effects (at least this is the current dominant clinical view). It is, of course, a sliding scale: I personally do not agree with the concept of "recreational gambling".

More fundamentally, one has to think philosophically about how to answer these questions. It appears (I could be wrong) that Anton you take a cost/benefit/utilitarian approach; whereas I take an ethics-based approach. Others may take an autonomy-based approach. Whatever your approach will define your opinion on the correct, balanced policy answer. This is as much a bio-ethical issue as much as a policy issue.

With respect to gambling, a big problem is the way is the way it is advertised in Ontario. I prefer the NY lotto — more honest and transparent to taxpayers -- "hey, 'ya never know'"

And, perhaps most important, to Rob: you are a brave man. I will educate myself further on these matters and the history of this matter. Ironically, the civil service prides itself on being a "receptor" of evidence-based research.

Congratulations on your public statements and courage. And thank you for educating me.