MPP Kim Craitor
JOHN ROBBINS/Bullet News
FORT ERIE – Just as the Ontario Legislature gets back to work in what’s almost sure to be one its rockiest sessions in more than a decade, Niagara Falls MPP Kim Craitor is pledging his support for the Fort Erie Race Track.
Despite concerns that slot funding for Ontario tracks could wind up on the chopping block as the Liberal government tries to trim its whopping $16-billion-a-year provincial deficit, Fort Erie officials say the track will open for a 115th season and they’ll continue to build their business case for renewing an agreement with the province set to expire at the end of the year.
Craitor, who has been working with the track, Town of Fort Erie and Fort Erie Economic Development and Tourism Corp. for several years to keep the track open and viable, says it’s important to remain focused even as the political rhetoric heats up.
“No decisions (by the government) have been made yet,” Craitor told Bullet News on Monday.
“We’ve got to put our business case forward and I’ll be leading the charge.”
Ontario Finance Minister Dwight Duncan sent a chill through the horse-racing industry early last week when he unexpectedly announced during a speech in Toronto the government is going to re-evaluate the $345-million-a-year “subsidy” the industry receives through the Ontario Lottery Gaming Corp. slots-at-racetracks program.
The minister’s remarks, which were made during a speech at the Economic Club of Toronto, provided few details about what exactly the government is considering.
It’s not clear if the government wants to kill the program altogether or keep a larger share of the slots money for its own uses.
Either way, any variation to the current level of support has track operators, employees and politicians in the affected communities worried about the future.
On Saturday, Fort Erie Race Track employees gathered for a meeting called by management to discuss the upcoming season and what the implications of the government’s deficit-cutting plans may be.
Jim Thibert, chief executive officer of the Fort Erie Live Racing Consortium, the not-for-profit group that operates the Fort Erie Race Track, said an employee meeting had been scheduled for some time, but was moved up in light of Duncan’s comments and references to provincial slot operations contained in the recently released Drummond Commission report.
Drummond, a former TD Bank economist, was asked by the government to study ways of eliminating the provincial deficit by 2017-2018 without having to raise taxes or making major cuts to health care or education programs.
“We wanted employees and horsemen to be aware and up to date,” Thibert said of the meeting.
“Things are going to heat up and right in time for our season opener so we are trying to make sure everyone has the facts and focuses on the job at hand (which is to) run another successful race year in Fort Erie.”
Fort Erie Race Track is in the last year of a three-year deal with the province regarding financial support that helped keep the track open after it successfully made the transition from a privately operated facility to a not-for-profit, community and stakeholder governance model two years ago.
Under that agreement, the track receives about $5.6 million a year – a small portion of its roughly $25 million a year budget, but an important component.
Track officials have been working on a business case for a new agreement for some time now and will continue that work, despite the political uncertainly surrounding the slots-at-racetracks program.
Meanwhile, a number of racing-industry associations are reportedly organizing a rally at Queen’s Park today in an effort to convince the government to look elsewhere for cuts.
Racing industry officials balk at Duncan’s reference to the slots-at-racetracks program as a subsidy.
Rather they see the program launched by the former government of Progressive Conservative Premier Mike Harris in 1999 as a successful revenue-sharing agreement that has helped to stabilize the racing industry and allow it to begin the process of re-inventing itself in the face of increasing competition from online gambling and casinos here in Ontario and across the border in the United States.
Many breeders, trainers and race track employees clearly feel the same way.
Rebecca Singleton, who works at the Fort Erie Race Track, says she’s worried about what the future holds.
“To take funding away and in turn shutting us down will close this small community, Fort Erie,” Singleton wrote in a letter to the editor of Bullet News.
“Fort Erie Race Track is what keeps us here. What will happen if you take this all away? We will all be on the unemployment line together, or worse yet, having to apply for welfare.”
She continued: “How much good will that be for our government then? We want to work hard, we want to work for our dollars and in turn we will end up putting it right back into our community. But it seems lately, we are always having to fight to keep our Race Track and our livelihood going.”
Craitor, who attended the employee meeting at the track on Saturday, said a previous government-commissioned study, the Sandinsky report, showed that the racing-industry needs to change if it’s going to survive.
One of the most important findings of that study, said Craitor, was that Ontario tracks need to work together more collaboratively if they are going to get a new generation of people into the sport.
Craitor said he believes the Fort Erie Race Track has already been taking some of the steps needed to secure its future and has come a long way in the past couple of years.
Fort Erie, which is one of only two thoroughbred tracks in Ontario, is vital to the industry and it deserves a chance to continue, he said.
“Fort Erie plays a pivotal role,” said Craitor. “Woodbine (race track) needs Fort Erie. You need the two tracks. That’s my opinion.”
