Finally an issue (No Casino) that both the right and left can agree upon.

Frum is mushy middle pretending to be right.

The casino market is saturated. It's no longer the cash cow it used to be.

Let the market decide.

As long as there is no public money on the line, either in subsidies or land give aways. Let the operators have some real skin on the line with the casino's profitability. They can buy the land not have it given to them like Exibition Place.

he seemed to do a good job writing speeches for George Bush, contributing to the GOP's back-to-back victories

George Bush with his propensity for spending taxpayers money wasn't conservative either.

OH really. Frum has made accusations of illegal actions on the part of casino owners and uses two incidents as proof. One is an accusation against a Detroit casino owner and the other is a statement about how one casino owner is lobbying against competition.

The casino industry is more tightly controlled in Ontario than is the nuclear industry. Failing to pay your phone bill can keep you from getting a license to work in a casino. If any questions about your taxes arise, you will never get a license. Every casino supplier must be extensively vetted, whether they supply the linen or take away the garbage.

Using crime as a reason to stop a casino is totally disingenuous so let fun haters find some other reason to stop them. By the way, Toronto is already suffering from all the negative effects of gambling. The cities of Orillia and Niagara Falls should be the ones complaining as they will be the ones whose economy will be losing out. By the way, Toronto will have a casino.

Mr. Frum should direct everyone to google earth and the coordinates of every casino outside of Las Vegas. Look carefully at the surrounding grids of land. It is not pretty. Good article.

After the casino is built, all the high paying construction jobs will be gone, after that the jobs will be traditionally lower paying hospitality jobs, a struggle for people living in one of the most expensive cities to live in. I am not against a person`s right to gamble, but I am against our nanny statist government telling me, amongst other things, I am too immature to buy wine and beer in my corner store, but I am mature enough to not blow all my money in their casino`s, for that reason I am anti casino, As for the Airport, we have lived in the Jet age for 60 years, time for these nimby`s to get with the times, and stop being phony about the so called noise, most of you live on top of the Gardiner expressway for gawds sake

I may be a proud right-wing-ian, but I really don't see how anyone can think this casino is a good idea.
What it generates in tax revenue, it sucks out of social services and policing costs.

In the end, it's nothing more than a tax on the vulnerable and the poor. And in a city like Toronto, champion of all left wing social causes, I GUARANTEE through my taxes, I'll end up paying the rent, heating, and food, of those people who drop all their money to make some shareholder in Nevada rich. It's effectively me transferring my tax dollars to a shareholder in Nevada, but through the hands of 10 government bureaucrats and a few gambling addicts. Economically, I can't think of a worse investment. It's nightmareish!

NO CASINO. NO! But yes, the airport, I'm down with that. Cheers.

Casinos are vices of society and should not be allowed in the first place. They make money by having you lose yours; it is just that simple, so why allow casinos at all ????

Let's ban alcohol too ... and bingo

... and pornography.

All vices must be purged!

Spending way too much time in church, pal. How's the hair shirt?

David you are correct on both issues. I would hasten to add that part of the proposed development is necessary. It is my understanding that Toronto needs a convention center that can host the largest trade shows. I don't think it would hurt, either, if the non-gambling aspects of the development were to go through, and perhaps make Toronto a venue for Vegas acts.

Convention space will be an interesting discussion. Building a new convention center will pose most of the same problems as the casino complex minus the objections to gambling. Can the councillors who sited traffic congestion, infrastructure, parking, neighborhood impact etc. do an about face on a project of a similar scope?

The traffic congestion issue is a non issue because people don't all travel to and from a casino at the same time. The parking issue will actually help parking lot operators as casinos are busiest in the evening and on weekends, when the lots are empty anyway. Third, what neighbourhood impact if they build at Exhibition Place?

I would not go as far as to say they are non-issues. What I would say is rejecting a casino complex on these points as many councillors opposing the casino have, will put them in an interesting position if and when a proposal for a new convention center comes forward. Can you reject a casino complex on these issues and then turn around and support a convention center that will create the same problems?

Your guess is as good as mine. The traffic issue, IMHO, will be there whatever is developed, but the answer is of course a subway that links the airport and the development as a loop line south of the Gardiner out to the Danforth with a transfer point for the Yonge line and the Spadina line that would eliminate the bottom of the U, and extend those now two lines south to intersect with the new line at the harbor.

I agree that some version of a downtown relief line, extending out to the convention centre and perhaps beyond, is useful for downtown congestion relief.

But that's not the issue for convention business. What matters there is an express link from the convention centre (or Union Station -- close enough) to Pearson. Anybody who thinks convention visitors are going to ride through a couple of dozen subway stops and one or two transfers (while toting suitcases) hasn't been paying attention.

What's it been, 40 years or more? since Kennedy had a rail link? I haven't looked at the map to check, but there are some rail lines going west used by the Go system. How much rail would have to be laid to tie Pearson to that system? Methinks far less than the proposed Eglinton west RT. And at the same time that would improve service for the border lands between Etobicoke and Mississauga.

They're supposedly building the rail link from Union to Pearson now -- it's supposed to be in place before the blessed PanAm Games. My point is that this is what matters for downtown convention business.

Even if we built a full-on Eglinton West subway like Bob Rae wanted in the early 1990s, the plan at that time would have required somebody coming from the airport to go through 23 subway stops and two transfers (Renforth and Eglinton West) to get all the way downtown. Very few people are going to do that, especially with luggage.

Try taking the subway (not the express train) from downtown London to Heathrow. It's crazy -- just too many stops, and it takes too long. I used to live in Boston, where the airport is way closer to downtown than in Toronto, and still relatively few people there take the subway from the airport, in large part because you have to transfer from a bus to the blue line and then to whatever subway line you actually want.

For downtown convention business, it's express or bust. An Eglinton crosstown subway / LRT may be a good idea in its own right, but it doesn't replace the straight shot from Union to Pearson.

Let's see. TTC $3.00. Blue 22 $25. Guess which one I am taking. (I can use the time to read)

Airport taxi (what most people take now): ~$50. To each his own.

One thing people fail to realize but is the most important thing to understand. Everyone will look to Vegas, and say look, it is a virtual money machine. Residents pay no state tax. Lots of casino jobs. It is a good thing. What they overlook is the fact that Vegas was built on gambling alone. For well over 60 years gambling has been the bread and butter of Clark County. But it took many years to build itself to that level.

Do not fool yourselves into thinking that it is an overnight fix or that it could even ever fix the financial woes that trouble Toronto and most of Ontario.
What comes with gambling is poverty as well. Ever travel the poor sections of Vegas..most have not. If you did, you would likely be robbed. Same thing with Atlantic City. One side of the street lined with billion dollar gambling hotels, the other side of the street, pawn shops and slums.
Ontario is already benefiting a lot from gambling, they should simply maximize the locations they have with table games. In my opinion, no new casino is needed for any Ontario city.

Dead against a Toronto casino as well.
I am waffling on whether an airport extension would be a good idea - because I'm not sure about the true intent of Porter at this point. We'll see .....

i dont understand how a casino can have negative economic impact.

as an economist pointed out, going to casino niagra is no different from going to a Leaf's game. either way your odds of winning arn't as good as you'd hope but hey.... whatever floats ur boat.

oh yeah? which economist said that?

Too many people get addicted to gambling. The more accessible the facility, the worse it is. The money that they would normally spend in their local community instead ends up being reserved for gambling, and then that money ends up going somewhere else instead of making the locals better off. This often leaves the local economy impoverished. At more of a province/state level you might not see much effect though.

I laugh at the main post and the two comments so far. Everybody thinks they know the right answer for what the people want and need built. Everybody wants to micromanage. Everybody's a genius with the One! True! Answer!

Forgive them, for they are barbarians and think their own personal likes and dislikes are the laws of nature.

People need and and want what they will pay for. If you simply ask them what they need and want, you will never, never ever get the truth. People will lie to you and themselves, they will tease themselves, ignore the costs and daydream.

But if you ask them to get off the sofa, into the car and open their wallets, then, and only then will you know if they actually want something. The only way to test that is for an entrepreneur to build it and see if he goes bust or makes money. If he goes bust, his bankruptcy trustee sells the white elephant to the next guy.

If you do that, the people speak the truth through their free market and not one dime of taxpayer money is risked.

Plus there's the charm of telling know it all know nothings like Frum to shut up, and the double charm of seeing politicos lose influence, power and money.

Sounds like you have all the answers too. An added bonus is that you can throw down your gratuitous statements and remain anonymous.

I blame both the airport boosters and casino backers and characterize them as being short sighted. The way to win people over, as Coyne has suggested at the end, is to get both the casino and airport/Porter airlines to build transit and share the costs between them. Here's an easy solution: a FREE automated monorail from the airport, across a high bridge to the casino complex, then extending to Union station, then looping back to the Toronto Island with another bridge. A full loop, not too long a distance: just 4 stations: Union station, Casino Stop, Island airport stop, and one more stop on Centre Island. Available for use by the public.. ie: no silly wait for ferries for people wanting to goto the Toronto islands, and the city gets to sell off their retarded ferries. Do you really think Porter Airlines and MGM together could not afford it? Pffftt, in LAS VEGAS the casinos got together and build just such a monorail which is much longer than this proposed loop.
The tragedy is neither Canadian govts nor business have any slightest shred of imagination or innovation. Both are dumbasses as far as I'm concerned, I dont see any hint of brainpower in either one.

The Las Vegas Monorail Corporation filed for bankruptcy in 2010. The Las Vegas Monorail costs money to ride. It's also located east of The Strip, reducing it's attractiveness as a method of transportation. What is this? An episode of The Simpsons?

"What about us brain-dead slobs?"
"You'll be given cushy jobs!"

First to your comment on the Las Vegas tram: It has gone broke twice, most recently settling a $650 million debt for $13 million. That is because people do not use it. I have been on it a number of times and rarely saw more than two or three people on a car.

Secondly, why do the taxpayers feel that one business should pay for things that taxes are supposed to pay for? Even a hosting fee is ridiculous. Do bars, which cause far more misery, pay a hosting fee? I don't think so.

The Richard Florida piece is an academic joke. There are some points worth considering (J read both the Huffington Post article and his groups "research" on the topic) but there is no meat on those bones. And the Huffington post article shows him as one simply against the more general Ford agenda. He is trading on his reputation as an academic with a decidedly poorly conceived and executed quicky report of dubious value. As an aside I am sure he is tutoring Adam Vaughan after reading this pile.

"The Richard Florida piece is an academic joke."

Why?

Analysis of the casino proposals by Rothman's Martin Prosperity Institute at U of T pretty much came to the same conclusion:

http://martinprosperity.org...

Casinos do more harm than good to the greater economy and social fabric of a city. And they don't actually generate that much revenue into city coffers anyways.

From the sounds of it you seem to think these critiques are wrong simply because they go against what Rob Ford thinks about the issue.

Just who exactly is on the "pro-casino" side saying this is a great idea? Other than Ford, the OLG, and casino industry?

Florida is the Director of MPI. I read that study. In Huffington he quotes his own data starved review. Florida is not without his strength, but this study, if you can call it that, is little more than personal opposition unworthy of MPI in my opinion.

Exactly. Florida is an ego-driven publicity-seeker, who now seems to confuse his personal ideological predispositions with genuine dispassionate analysis. He's like a Paul Krugman without the academic heft and Nobel Prize. And people now correctly label Krugman as a "commentator" rather than an economist when he's offering his opinions.

None of that is to say that there isn't a valid case against downtown casinos. I'd just be cautious about treating Richard Florida's opinion as if he approaches the evidence with an open mind.

Casinos are a tax on all businesses in the downtown core. Tourists will spend more in the casino than at local businesses. Just go take a look at the empty downtown Windsor scene. Say no to the casino. Ford has been a decent mayor but his position on the Casino has poor math behind it. Just like his math behind building subways during election time. Good mayor but bad at math.

Go ask the restaurants and other tourist businesses in Windsor and Niagara whether they are for or against casinos. You'll get a virtually unanimous "for". Why do you think the Ontario Restaurant Hotel & Motel Association has been so strongly in favour of a casino in Toronto? Why do you think local businesses like O&B have come out in support of it?

There are plenty of good reasons to oppose a downtown casino. Supposedly negative effects on nearby businesses do not qualify as one of those good reasons.

Windsor or Niagara are not Toronto. Both of your examples are midsized regional centres, with moribund economies and deep in the rust belt with nothing much else going for them. The circumstances that make these cities good candidates do not exist in Toronto.

I mentioned Windsor because DTK brought it up. I agree that the analysis for Toronto is different. That said, the impact on the local tourism & entertainment businesses belongs on the "pro" rather than the "con" side of the ledger. This is why, as I said, those businesses and their industry associations are supporting a Toronto casino.

There are plenty of different arguments against a Toronto casino, which are quite valid, like Frum's point about the risk of corruption.

I just think there are pros (like business for local restaurants) and there are cons (like potential corruption), and it's silly to pretend that some of the pros are really cons just to reach a pre-determined point of view.

What exists in Toronto are thousands of people who travel to Rama and Niagara every day. Why should they have to travel so far to gamble? By the way, since the smoking ban in casinos, the number of underground games in Toronto have increased by at least 1,000%. There is a game on every block in Chinatown.

So it's a "tax" if individuals are allowed to spend their money where they *want*?

Windsor was built with the intention of taking money from American players, and they did so for years. Now that there is competition, business is way down. It is a very poor example of the effects of casinos. Just look at how lively Las Vegas is 24 hours a day.

how busy do you think vegas would be if they didn't comp hotel rooms and meals for many gamblers?

Tell that to Orillia whose economy benefits from the spending of casino employees who contribute $50 million a year. Does Toronto not want any of that? Also, tell it to the 3,000 people who work at Rama who earning over $100 million a year in wages.

Then there is the issue that no one talks about and that is the pollution caused by 10,000 people traveling to Rama, and who knows how many to Niagara Falls each day. Don't all of you lefties hate carbon emissions? Believe me, Niagara Falls and Orillia both hope that Toronto turns down a casino. Those cities get all the benefits but don't have to pay to treat the problem gamblers from Toronto.

A fork in Toronto, it's done.

I agree. No casino (at least not downtown), but the airport is a good call.