Liberals Drive-On With Misinformation

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Published: March 8, 2012 12:05 pm EST

In the face of logic and cold, hard facts, Ontario Finance Minister Dwight Duncan continues to publicly misconstrue the province's bilateral, commercial contract otherwise known as the slots-at-racetracks agreement

which has brought the Ontario government roughly $15-billion since its inception.

In an email exchange with Windsor Star reporter Monica Wolfson on Wednesday, March 7, Duncan continued to convey that Ontario's slots-at-racetracks program is a 'subsidy' for the provincial horse-racing industry, which couldn't be any further from the truth.

On Wednesday, Duncan told Wolfson that since 1998 the Ontario horse-racing industry has received $3.4-billion in "government support;" which, in actuality, is a total accumulation of the provincial racing industry's 20-per-cent share of revenue taken in by slot machines located within the walls of Ontario racetracks. During that same time frame, the Ontario Provincial Government has stuffed its coffers with roughly $15-billion in slots revenue, via its 75-per-cent take of the machines' net.

Above and beyond the slots revenue, the Ontario horse-racing industry, which attracts a wealth of foreign capital to the province, annually sends $261-million in direct taxes to the Ontario Government; employs roughly 60,000 Ontarians; accounts for roughly $2-billion in annual expenditures; and pays out roughly $15-million in salaries and wages, which equates to an enormous stimulus for the province.

"We as a government need to be accountable to the taxpayer and decide whether or not we're spending their hard-earned dollars wisely," Duncan told Wolfson. "The review of the slots at racetrack program will help us to do just that."

The review that Drummond is speaking of is exactly what Ontario Horse Racing Industry Association President Sue Leslie wants. "[The Ontario horse-racing industry would be more than happy to sit down with the government and assess this program on the basis of 'value for money,' she said. "[The figures] are hugely on our side, so we welcome that, and we are attempting, as we speak, to get that opportunity with the government."

For Trot Insider's complete coverage regarding the fallout and uproar in response to the Ontario Liberals' Drummond Report, click here.

(Photo of Dwight Duncan courtesy Todd Korol/Reuters)

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