One of the candidates in the hotly contested Ward 11 race isn’t buying Ward 5 incumbent Robert Kirwan’s firm belief that the Kingsway Entertainment District (KED) will, if actually built, be a game-changer for Greater Sudbry.
John Lindsay is one six candidates running for the Ward 11 seat in Minnow Lake.
He had a strong reaction to a statement from Kirwan this week explaining why a 2016 Facebook post the Ward 5 councillor made in which he said expanding Sudbury Downs into a full-on casino would be bad for the people of Sudbury can’t be compared to his support for a full casino on the Kingsway.
Basically, he was not flip-flopping, Kirwan said. The two projects, and their impacts, would be different, said the councillor, who’s known for his strong opinions and his willingness to share them.
Lindsay, though, says Kirwan’s strong opinion the KED will be good for the city is “pure speculation.”
This requires a bit of an explainer. Kirwan said a casino at Sudbury Downs, out in Chelmsford, is more isolated and so wouldn’t draw many tourists to it. Meaning, he said, an expanded casino would be supported mostly by Sudburians. If it’s only local people spending money there, local money would be vacuumed out of the economy by the casino owner.
The crux of Kirwan’s argument (and that of KED proponents) is this: On the Kingsway and paired with amenities like an event centre and the promised concerts and shows to be hosted there, a casino would draw tourists from outside the community who would leave their money here when they go.
This is “pure speculation,” Lindsay argued.
It’s a real stretch, the Ward 11 candidate said that “just by moving from Chelmsford to the Kingsway, the facility will be a real tourist magnet and that we will become the ‘regional attraction for Northeasten Ontario’ (as Kirwan suggests).” It’s also a stretch, Linsday said, that “most of the patrons of the new casino will be tourists who would supposedly come here rather than casinos in Orillia (Rama) or facilities in the Sault and eventually in North Bay and would fill our increased hotel capacity required due to the Casino.
“Mr. Kirwan assumes that all visitors to Sudbury will frequent the new casino, another unfounded opinion.”
Linsday says any jobs created by a casino at the KED would be offset by job losses in the city’s hospitality sector caused by the project coming to fruition, and any other benefits can’t be guaranteed.
“That the new Casino will attract an increased number of conferences and conventions is pure supposition. Using the Casino in Thunder Bay, another relatively remote Northern Ontario community, as an example, it has not proven to be a tourist magnet and has done little to boost that community’s economic fortune,” Lindsay said. “I know that many citizens would like to see a detailed explanation of how the new casino is a ‘game-changer’ according to Mr. Kirwan.”
The full text of Lindsay’s release is below.
Sometimes numbers do not add up except for Councillor/candidate Robert Kirwan who tries to defend his change of heart or “flip flop” with respect to the supposed benefits of a Casino for Sudbury as reported in facebook posts and in the Sudbury Star and Sudbury.com (Sept. 5th). Originally he estimated, when he was a Casino opponent, that the present slots takes “80 million dollars per year of economic activity out of our local market” based on the $20 million taken in by the slots in Chelmsford yearly (his figures not mine). The proposed casino on the Kingsway will according to estimates take in $100 million. Using Mr. Kirwin’s formula that would mean the new facility would result in a loss of $400 million of economic activity in our local market each year.
Most of his other rational for a new Casino on the Kingsway is based on pure speculation. First, that just by moving from Chelmsford to the Kingsway the facility will be a real tourist magnet and that we will become the “regional attraction for Northeasten Ontario” and most of the patrons of the new casino will be tourists who would supposedly come here rather than casinos in Orilla (Rama) or facilities in the Sault and eventually in North Bay and would fill our increased hotel capacity required due to the Casino. Mr. Kirwan assumes that all visitors to Sudbury will frequent the new Casino, another unfounded opinion. None of my visitors to Sudbury have shown little interest in gambling but did enjoy taking in the horse racing at Sudbury Downs before it was eliminated here, but not everywhere in the province, and we did lose a tourist attraction and with it a thriving local industry.
Mr. Kirwin spouts the benefit of job creation with hundreds of new jobs in construction of the new facility which might be better employed fixing our crumbling infrastructure and roads. Permanent jobs created at the casino and restaurants owned by Gateway will likely be at the expense of those lost in the local hospitality industry. That the new Casino will attract an increased number of conferences and conventions is pure supposition. Using the Casino in Thunder Bay, another relatively remote Northern Ontario community, as an example, it has not proven to be a tourist magnet and has done little to boost that communities economic fortune. We should learn from the experience of other locations like ours and not compare to facilities in high population areas like Southern Ontario where million live in close proximity to gaming locations.
I know that many citizens would like to see a detailed explanation of how the new casino is a “game changer” according to Mr. Kirwan while others say it could be, as he suggested originally that ‘we will have a beautiful casino but our economy is defiantly going to suffer”. So what is it going to be? This is should be something all candidates need to examine and voters need to know more about before the election.
