My name is Tom Fortin and I was born, raised, and
educated in Sudbury. I operate an electronics
manufacturing company . I care about this community and
have spoken with many people about Sudbury’s proposed
new casino and have found most people have little real
information about the project. The goal of these ads is
to increase the awareness of what economic and social
impacts a centrally located casino would have on our
city. Sudbury’s economy, culture and social growth has
been substantial over the past few years and we as
citizens have a lot to be proud of. From our new School
of Medicine, The Architect School, downtown
revitalization, the Elgin Greenway Project, our many
festivals and our expanding industrial base, we have
built a strong, vibrant and culturally diverse community
. I believe a casino will have a profound negative
social and economic impact on all we have accomplished
together.
The following OLG Casino FACT ads were published in the
Northern Life from NOV 26, 2013, through Jan 2014.
OLG Casino FACT # 1/10
: Casinos
Hurt Local Business
-Published NOV 26, 2013
The primary data for this graph was compiled from the
Annual Small Business Survey conducted by Thunder Bay
Ventures which is a federally funded business
development institution.
The survey is sent our every year to business located in
Thunder Bay with 35 employees or less. The
database of businesses is obtained from the Thunder Bay
Chamber of Commerce.
On average, 108 surveys are returned from the 700 sent
out to local businesses.
If you visit their web site (
http://www.thunderbayventures.com/article/small-business-survey-114.asp
) you can download the individual surveys which makes
for very interesting reading as there are many comments
on the evolution of general business conditions in
Thunder Bay, before and after the casino opened in 2000.
The preamble data was obtained through communications
with Ken Boshcoff, the Mayor of Thunder Bay at the time
the casino was brought to the city.
Gambling loss data was obtained from the OLG financial
reports (
http://www.olg.ca/about/public_disclosure/annual_report.jsp
) which for the year ending March 31 2012, showed
gambling losses at the casino to be 50.2 Million.
The most relevant business failure was that of the
roving casino which was a private organization that
hosted casino events throughout the city and returned
85% of gambling losses to many local charities. Compare
that to the OLG 's " Trillium Foundation" which shared
approx 2% of gambling losses in the casino with local
charities.
OLG Casino FACT # 2/10
:
1 Job=4 Jobs Lost in Community
-Published NOV 28, 2013
The data for the table in this ad is extracted from the
OLG Financial Report for the year ending March 31st,
2011. The report can be downloaded at :
http://www.olg.ca/about/public_disclosure/annual_report.jsp
The revision as of Mach 31st, 2013, is due to the OLG
suspending the compensation for the track holder and
horse people who each has previously received 10% of
gambling losses. The track holder does
receive rent for the facilities at the downs, however it
is a small fraction of the 5 Million or so they
previously received.
The Trillium Foundation claimes $1.4 Million is returned
to charites in Sudbury, however, they include payments
made to many entities outside the City of Greater
Sudbury. When examining the Trillium Foundation
data and removing the sponsorships outside of Greater
Sudbury the actual number works out to 850K +/-5K
for each the last 5 years. You can view the archives of where
the Trillium money is spent in reports posted here:
http://www.otf.ca/en/grantRecipients/acms.asp
OLG Casino FACT # 3/10
:
Northern Ontario Casinos Do Not attract Tourists
-Published Dec 3, 2013
The largest misconception about casinos in Northern
Ontario is that they will attract tourists to our
community. Both Thunder Bay and SS Marie have had
casinos in their cities for over a decade and data shows
that they have not succeeded in attracting any
significant numbers of visitors to their respective
communities. The data for this ad is from a survey
of casino patrons that shows where they are from, and
why they came to the host community. You can
download the entire report
HERE, PDF 413K ). Although Sudbury may have a
higher population base in surrounding communities it is
obvious that a casino will only displace tourist
spending in existing restaurants and attractions in our
city. The bottom line is the greatest proportion
of people gambling in our casino will be from our
community. This will have a profound effect on the
financial viablity of the range of homw grown
restaurants and attractions we presently enjoy.
After only a glance at OLG Casino FACT #4/10you will
realize that Sudbury would not be special in any way if
a full casino is built in our city. In fact, if we
really want to be different we should say no to any type
of gambling facility in our city.
OLG Casino FACT # 4/10
:
The Americans are Coming
-Published DEC 3, 2013
Presently, the OLG Slots at Sudbury Downs is an OLG
owned and operated facility. The OLG leases the
space from Sudbury Downs. The OLG is a part of the
Ontario Ministry of finannce and thus its employees are
essentially governmnet employees. As part of the
casino modernization, the new casinos will be privately
owned and virtually all of the bidders are large
American gambling companies.
OLG Casino FACT # 5/10
:
Gambling losses are about to increase 2-3X in Sudbury.
-Published DEC 5, 2013
The request for proposal ( RFP) documents sent out by
the OLG amke calculating where the revenue from the new
casino will go quite trivial. the expected revenues are
based upon the statements by the city outlining their
expected revenue from the new casino.
The new central casino in Sudbury will extract from 59
to 100 Million dollars from our community EVERY year.
That is enough to build a new large arena, AND a
convention/arts centre, every year! Another way to look
at it is that this amount of money is equivalent to a
property tax increase of from 26-45% based on Sudbury’s
property tax revenues of 222 Million/year.
As the targeted patrons of the casino will be from
Sudbury and area, these dollars will no longer be
available to be spent in existing businesses including,
restaurants, festivals and cultural events, local
entertainment, charities and virtually every other type
of business.
OLG Casino FACT # 6/10
:
When seniors gamble, the community loses.
-Published DEC 10, 2013
The first anti-casino ad published by Tom was a two page
AD on July 18, 2013 in the Northern Life. It is
shown below.
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