Ontario Auditor General delivers scathing review of OLG modernization plan
Wednesday, April 30, 2014
by SUSAN MANN
The most disturbing part of Ontario Auditor General Bonnie Lysyk’s special report on the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation’s modernization plan was the provincial government and the OLG knew before cancelling the Slots at Racetracks program the decision would slam the horse racing industry into the rails, says an industry spokesman.
Brian Tropea, general manager of the Ontario Harness Horse Association, says “they (the Ontario government) knew it was going to have negative consequences to the industry but continued on with the plan anyway.”
Lysyk says in her report, released Monday, the government had sufficient information “to know that without the program funding the number of racetracks could be reduced from 17 to as few as six. This would mean fewer race dates, less breeding and fewer economic benefits to the agricultural industry.”
The government announced in February 2012 it was ending the slots at racetracks program as of March 31, 2013. In the year ending March 31, 2012 the program provided $347.3 million in funding to racetrack operators and horse people, the report says.
Mark Cripps, agriculture ministry spokesman for Premier and Agriculture Minister Kathleen Wynne, declined to comment on the report, saying the agriculture ministry didn’t make the decision to end the program. It was the ministry of finance that made that decision, and Cripps directed questions about the program’s ending to that ministry.
Cripps says the only part he can comment on is the five-year Horse Racing Partnership Plan, which provides up to $500 million for the industry over the five years it is in place.
Scott Blodgett, senior media relations adviser with the finance ministry, couldn’t be reached for comment.
Lysyk’s report says the province and Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation (OLG) had general information that the program funding wasn’t having the positive impact on horse racing and the agricultural sector that they had originally envisioned. There were ongoing concerns some racetrack operators weren’t using the program funding for its intended purpose of promoting live horse racing in Ontario and subsequently benefitting the agricultural sector.
When the OLG requested in 2010 racetrack operators account for their use of more than $1.3 billion in funding they received since 1998, “the responses of the racetrack operators gave no clear indication where or how the funding had been used to improve the Ontario horse racing experience,” the report says.
Tropea says a lot of Lysyk’s report talks “about the accountability and the benchmarks and the racetracks’ reporting and those types of things.” But rather than “making the racetracks accountable and having a transparent revenue-sharing agreement, they (the government) decided just to end it (the slots at racetracks program) instead.”
The report also notes the government and OLG did not properly consult with various industries, businesses and municipalities affected by the program’s cancellation.
Tropea says nothing that Lysyk said in her report surprised him. It just “verified everything that we’ve been saying for the last two years – that if they went forward with their modernization plan that it was going to have severe negative consequences for rural Ontario and the horse racing industry.”
Lysyk’s report also says OLG’s modernization plan initially will not offset the government’s decision to end the slots at racetracks program. Tropea says that modernization plan will never offset the losses from the program’s cancellation.
The government has entered into agreements with tracks to rent their facilities to allow slot machines to continue being there but “they need to make sure that the horse people have adequate funding to be able to continue to operate and make it a profitable business,” he says. BF