Local Conservative MPP’s are fighting to save the horse racing industry’s share of racetrack slot revenue.
Both Bill Walker and Lisa Thompson supported a petition introduced in the legislature on Wednesday — just as about 500 people demonstrated outside of Queen’s Park.
Both Walker and Thompson say ending the program in Clinton and Hanover is a bad idea.
Finance Minister Dwight Duncan has said he will review the 345-million dollars in government funding for the racing industry.
Thompson believes if the McGuinty government also kills the slots program it would have an immediate negative effect on the spin-off economy that depends on revenue from the machines.
The program also pays municipalities which host slots operations a five per-cent share of total revenue on a quarterly basis.
Thompson says the Slots program benefits the horse racing industry directly and any move to take funding away from horsemen would be another example of the Liberals leaving rural Ontario behind.
She cites figures that say annual spending by the horse racing industry ballooned to two-billion dollars in 2010 from 1.2-billion in 2000 with 80 per-cent of the growth in rural communities.
And she says the bulk of revenue comes into agricultural communities like Clinton and Hanover whose race tracks feature slots operations.
Thompson says ending the program would also affect local businesses, truck owners, feed dealers and the people who work for them.
The Liberals are looking at the Slots at Racetracks program as a possible target as it moves to curb a 16-billion dollar deficit and balance the province’s books by 2018.
Thompson is worried that the horse racing industry may become a victim of a government numbers game especially since Premier McGuinty has pledged to keep the Junior Kindergarten program in schools.
Getting rid of Junior-K was among hundreds of recommendations contained in a report released last week by former TD Bank Chief Economist Don Drummond on how the government can cut its deficit.
Visitors to Clinton Raceway have spent almost seven-million dollars on the slots since they opened in 2000.
