The plans for the new Toronto casino have crumbled in a pretty spectacular way. In a crushing defeat, the Toronto casino was sent to the dustbin of history with a vote of 38-6! What is most impressive about the story is that grassroots Canadians are credited with making it happen. Regular Canadians, worried about the health of families, concerned about the ability of small and mid-size businesses being able to compete with casinos and disgusted by the cruelty of governments making incredible sums of money off of addicts, these Canadians...
This week, ARPA Canada sent a letter to Toronto's Mayor Rob Ford and the 44 councillors urging them to reconsider the Mayor's position on building a casino in the downtown core. Mr. Ford is on record as advocating for the casino as a financial saviour of the city. Sadly, he has dismissed outright many of the social scientific evidence that demonstrates the incredible costs to the city in law enforcement and lost revenue for small and mid-size business as well as the heavy toll on addiction services and the losses...
The City of Ottawa recently sent a letter to the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation (OLG), expressing interest in becoming a host city to a large gaming entertainment centre (read: casino). You can learn more about that story here. We were happy to hear that at least some councillors were hesitant about the idea, expressing concern over the social welfare of the city. ARPA Canada drafted a letter to Mayor Jim Watson and the 23 councillors outlining the risks and hidden costs of such a project and urging caution. Often...
By Derek Miedema, Institute of Marriage and Family Canada: Gambling in Canada is big business. Statistics Canada reports that gambling brought in over $13 billion in revenue in 2008.1 The decisions of British Columbia, Ontario, Quebec and the Atlantic provinces to allow government-sanctioned online gambling are a sign that governments still want more...
National Post, July 16, 2010: The government of British Columbia has just launched an online gambling website, the first government-sanctioned online casino. The B.C. Lottery Corporation will offer 75 casino-style games for the website Playnow.com. There will be bingo, the ability to purchase lottery tickets, betting on sporting events, and all the usual games, like blackjack, roulette and poker. How this sits with the government’s mandate to enforce “responsible gambling” remains to be seen. [Read more here.] ...
The Globe & Mail is running a series on gambling and its first two articles reveal some staggering statistics about the harm of the gaming industry in Canada. Click here to read "Casinos spend millions to make losers feel like winners" and click here to read "The million dollar club: losing big, losing often." Gambling is taking an increasingly large toll on the well-being of Canadians, destroying families and hurting communities. We need to be a voice in our communities to keep casinos and gaming centres away....
By Gary Mason, Globe and Mail, August 24, 2009: In government, one never says never. Which is why politicians should always be careful about proclaiming war on potential revenue streams. A couple of years ago, the minister in charge of policing in B.C. said he was out to eradicate online gambling. But then one day, Rich Coleman switched portfolios and was suddenly overseeing gaming, a huge government revenue producer. [Continue reading this article here.]...