The Ontario PC Party is unveiled what the party is calling a turnaround plan for Ontario’s embattled horse-racing industry on Nov. 8.
“A thriving horse-racing industry is not just something to be toyed with. It needs to have a plan,” says PC leader Tim Hudak. “The industry employs 60,000 men and women in work they love, and helps sustain small towns and rural communities across the province.
“It’s too important to lose because of a bad political decision.”
The Liberal decision to pull the plug on the successful slots at the racetracks program devastated the horse-racing industry, and put tens of thousands of jobs at risk, states a press release from the Ontario PCs.
“What the Liberals have done has left those in the horse-racing industry having to go begging for grants every year,” added Randy Pettapiece, Hudak’s Rural Affairs and Horse Racing Critic. “It creates nothing more than another (government) horse bureaucracy that can only lead to fewer jobs and fewer spin-off benefits for broader rural communities.”
The Conservatives say th plan will strengthen public-private partnerships with the job-creating racing industry.
Core elements of the plan include “re-establishing, but fixing, a slot at racetracks program that will be transparent, accountable and affordable to the taxpayer.”
The five point plan also includes:
– ending the Liberals’ plan to close down racetrack slots in favour of building 29 new casinos;
– forming public-private partnerships with businesses that know how to run slots and other games to increase the overall revenue that can be shared with the horse racing industry and taxpayers.
– building off of what is already working and successful – “New gaming operations – like table games and Sports betting – should go to racetracks, as opposed to building 29 new casinos.”;
– enforcing strong accountability and transparency mechanisms around how the revenue is used, as recommended in the 2008 Sadinsky report.
The Conservatives say they will look to best practices in U.S. jurisdictions like New York and Pennsylvania as models.
Pettapiece, MPP for Perth Wellington, will tour the province on behalf of the Ontario PCs to discuss ways to implement the plan to ensure jobs.
