Sometime this week Wellington County Warden Chris White will be writing to Premier Dalton McGuinty and urge him to slow down.
White had hoped the week before to be able to lobby so the province would back off its plan to remove agreement funding to the horse racing sector from the OLG. The horse groups receive 10 per cent of profits from slots facilities across Ontario.
But, moving with great speed, the province announced its budget, immediately axed three slots facilities in southwestern Ontario last week at Windsor Raceway, Fort Erie and Hiawatha in Sarnia. Over 500 jobs will be lost in those places. The racetracks will remain open – if they are able.
That is one reason White is anxious to tell the premier why he should slow down. White’s letter will specifically ask “What information did you have when you made this decision?”
The horse racing industry was in the doldrums when it set its agreement in the late 1990s for a share of the slots profits from the facilities that would be located at racetracks. Since that deal was struck, the race tracks boomed with larger purses and larger crowds attracted by better horses and more race competition. The province gets about 75 per cent of those slots profits, over $1 billion a year. Track owners and host municipalities share 10% and 5% respectively.
White said he understands the OLG wants to expand gambling, but the move affects the equine industry in a way that could devastate it. It particularly affects Wellington County, which not only has a slots facility in Elora to go with the new racetrack that opened there nine years ago, but also all kinds of businesses that are directly connected to the horse industry.
“The OLG has a plan to expand gambling – but not a plan for the equestrian,” White said on Monday.
That side of the equation provides about 60,000 jobs across Ontario, and White said 45,000 of those are full time and the remainder part time.
Wellington County has one of the highest horse populations per capita in Canada, and White called it “a mini-auto industry and the impact in Wellington is huge.”
The province bailed out the auto industry a few years ago and that saved fewer jobs than the horse industry provides.
White said Wellington County has some of the best horses in the world, and noted Pennsylvania based the rebuilding of its horse industry on how it was done in Ontario.
The industry is more than the breeding of horses, or, as the government has put it, “rich guys with horses.”
The warden said, “This industry is a key part of rural Ontario.”
He said the Liberal government acted hastily in the past and backed up, and he is hoping that will be the case now. He cited the Green Energy Act that had unintended consequences McGuinty reversed in the past few weeks. Those included allowing solar panels in subdivisions, which resulted in at least one place being filled with those panels.
White said until the government has done a full analysis of the situation, it should, at the very least, allow a transition period so the industry can adjust while the facts are gathered.
The horse industry receives about $345 million a year from slots profits and uses that money for purses. Since the program was implemented in the late 1990s, the horse business has exploded in Ontario and particularly in Wellington.
White said at the least the province should “try to mitigate this change.”
It will not be just horse owners and tracks affected, he believes. The job spin-off includes barn builders, race cart makers, riding stables, those who run them and employees who clean them, farmers who provide hay, straw, and grain feeds, feed mills, veterinarians, stable cleaners, and those employed at local racetracks.
There are also those who make clothing and equipment for riding and those jobs, too, are local jobs.
White said cuts go all the way back to people who buy trailers and trucks made in Ontario to move their horses.
“This is a fundamental industry, and to cut the lifeline … They moved too fast.”
White said the province is trying to sell the changes by claiming citizens can choose between rich people and their horses, or supply that cash for health care.
He cited Wellington County’s Sunrise Therapeutic Equestrian Centre and asked if that is not something to do with fundamental health issues. It is just one more equestrian operation that could be affected.
White will be bringing the issue to the Rural Ontario Municipal Association for more lobbying. He said while the issue has major effects on Wellington County, it has implications for all of rural Ontario.
