Councilors Want C$100 Million or Bust

Toronto Mayor Rob Ford and some Toronto councilors remain optimistic that the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation (OLG) will find a workable solution that will allow the city to earn annual hosting fees of C$100 million, for the building of a new casino gambling venue. The proposed site is the 192-acre Canadian National Exhibition (CNE) place along Toronto’s waterfront. Otherwise, the OLG will be constrained to negotiate with other municipalities like Mississauga, Vaughan or Markham-Richmond, which the government controlled corporation considers as similarly lucrative.

This is mainly because majority of Toronto’s councilors are against the building of a new casino gambling venue at the CNE place. Others are not convinced that the city of Toronto will benefit from the deals offered by interested Las Vegas casino companies, such as the plans presented by MGM executives last week; not unless the OLG will make the original C$100 million annual hosting-fee a reality.

Many of the city’s councilors consider the stipulated annual fee as the only way that will allow Toronto to recover the costs of building additional infrastructures such as new bridges, underground car parks and enhancements that will make transportation accessible. This is in order to improve instead of worsen Toronto city’s already thriving condition.

Even officials of the Canadian National Exhibition Association (CNEA) consider a side-by-side existence between a multi-billion dollar hotel casino complex and the annual 18-day Canadian National Exhibition as detrimental to the economic and social well-being of the people of Toronto. Currently, the city derives as much as C$50 million in revenues from the annual CNE festival, and the CNEA believes that the proposed coexistence with the mega hotel-casino complex, will only lead to the festival’s demise.