Dropping a casino option on Toronto has provided a marvellous insight into the decision-making processes of the city’sl politicians. Who wants the issue decided by a referendum? That’s not such an easy question to answer. Mayor Rob Ford and his sidekick brother Doug might both believe that a casino for Toronto is exactly what’s needed, but they are not of one mind on the matter of a referendum and for good reason.
Mayor Ford has always taken the position that his political agenda is simply a reflection of what most Torontonians think, hence his support for subways over every other kind of public transit whatever the cost. But if there is a referendum on casinos and people say no, the mayor can no longer make that claim. Indeed, if the referendum says yes by just a thin margin, his status as a mayor speaking for most people starts to look shaky.
That’s why preliminary consideration of the casino option has been pushed off to the city’s executive committee, a committee stacked with councillors appointed by the mayor and therefore likely to respect his ambivalence. It’s unclear what the committee can do with the issue other than delay any decision for a while. Maybe it will agree a referendum could take place during the municipal election in 2014.
Should the casino decision be made not by referendum, but by city councillors? If so, public hearings will be required, and it is fair to say that those who are opposed to casinos and gambling are far more committed to their position than those who favour them, so the hearings will be stacked with speakers in opposition.
This is, after all, Toronto the Good, where as recently as 1950 Mayor Hiram McCallum was heard to say in reaction to the idea of Sunday baseball, “You can shoot a cannon off on Yonge Street on Sunday, and I hope that will continue.” There’s a legacy here and in many other North American cities that gambling is a social pathology to be avoided: it is not by chance that Toronto does not have a casino.
Unlike most municipal decisions, a casino raises a host of moral issues, particularly about the role of government and the nature of taxation. The brilliant political commentator Tony Judt remarked, just before his death two years ago, “Whether or not we think gambling is a sin, we can hardly deny that it is a step backwards in social policy: gambling is regressive, selective, indirect taxation. You are basically encouraging the poor to spend money in expectation of wealth, whereas the wealthy, even if they did choose to spend the same amount of money, would not feel the loss.”
Agreeing that it’s ineffective to ban gambling altogether, Judt says, “It is one thing to acknowledge human imperfection, quite another to exploit it mercilessly as a substitute for social policy.” I suspect such views would find powerful expression at public hearings.
There’s the other question of location. MGM, a gigantic global casino operator, has made it clear that the downtown waterfront is the only location where it would invest a few billion on gambling dens and the hotels and restaurants that support the activity. That would be bound to create strong opposition from the downtown restaurants and hotels that would find business drained away by the discounts casinos generally provide patrons. These arguments would hold some sway at the Ontario Municipal Board.
Much less attractive is the Woodbine racetrack location in the far reaches of Rexdale — Ford country, for sure — but even the shopping mall promised by then-councillor Rob Ford never arrived even after years of hoopla.
In short, this is a tricky issue for those who think a casino should be established in Toronto. At this point, it’s not clear how they can arrange things to get a positive decision quickly. We’ll have to see how the municipal lobbyists and spin doctors push the issue in the next few months in their attempt to close the deal.
