DearTeeVeeVille
Unlike Vaughn Palmer, who worked late last Thursday to produce his Casino Royale column and then got up early on Good Friday to appear on the Ledgie-Boys Radio Show with substitute host Michael Smyth, Global's man-about-town Keith Baldrey was nowhere to be seen or heard on the issue of the Campbell government insider with the financial interest in the proposed downtown Vancouver Casino calling up the Minister responsible before the final deal went down.
But that doesn't mean Mr. Baldrey hadn't already weighed in with his missive on state-sponsored gambling in general, and the big money in particular, that, apparently, can be made from it.
Unfortunately, this column in favour of state-sponsored gambling from Mr. Baldrey came three days early and $500 million dollars too late. Here is a wee chunk of it, as published in that most august of public-print journals, The Abbotsford Times:
"...The lucky municipalities that have casinos within their boundaries reap financial benefits that on average equal between two and three per cent of their annual budgets. That's money that helps pay for things such as garbage collection, street cleaning, water quality and maintaining parks and recreational facilities....."
{snippety-doo-dah}
"...In comparison, the amount we would have to raise taxes across society to replacing gaming revenues would be painful - and roundly protested.
So bring on the new casino to BC Place! I sincerely hope it makes one heck of a lot of money, since much of it will flow into everything from sports to arts and culture to schools to health care. The anti-gaming lobby is no more...."
Two things....
1) Two to three percent? If that is really the number, is that truly irreplacable? I think not.
2) With cheerleaders like Mr. Baldrey around waving their pom-poms and carrying the gaming lobby's water, how could the anti-gaming lobby and/or the anti-graft lobby not be dead of dehydration?
.
2 comments:
Mr. Baldrey seems to forget that some revenues from BC Rail BC Hydro and I think it was BC Gas went into these coffers and helped pay for education, social programs Medical treatments and other things. Oh, but wait a minute. Campbell gave away the sources for all those moneys.
And it's misleading to say that lottery revenue pays for sports or arts or schools when just last fall the Campbell government cut that funding by 95%.
With one hand, reduce access by charitable organizations to lottery funds and with the other, raise the potential for funds!!!!
It's all so corrupt...
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