SECRETIVENESS OF LOTTERY CORPORATION CONCERNING
OSOYOOS TIMES-April 9, 2008
The British Columbia Lottery Corporation wasn't very forthcoming when it shot down a proposal to revitalize Osoyoos's Desert Park race track a year ago and it's even less forthcoming about it's reasoning today.
The Osoyoos Times waited 10 months for a Freedom of Information request on the corporation's assessments of the gaming market in Osoyoos after the idea of putting the track back in action as an event facility with slot machines was nixed in April 2007.
Despite regulations which demand that the corporation inform an interested party about the reasons for any delays in honouring a request for information, the Times received little to no correspondence from the corporation about why it was taking so long for the documentation to arrive.
The Times finally received a seven-page Gaming market assessment for Osoyoos prepared by a consulting agency and a 12-page internal report on the town's gaming market last month.
But the documents were heavily edited with several pages almost completely blacked out.
The consultant-prepared report does support the corporation's position that Osoyoos would not be able to support a gaming facility.
While the Osoyoos market attracts a significant number of tourists each year, casino visitation from tourists would not be able to support a casino over a full year, the report reads.
But any figures backing such a statement up are edited.
We estimate that of the (edited) adult visitors to the region, approximately (edited) would visit a casino in Osoyoos, the report reads. However, since 45 % of visitation is concentrated during the months of July and August, over an entire year tourism would only generate approximately (edited) visits a month to an Osoyoos casino. Assuming an average spend per visit of (edited) this represents about (edited) in slot win a year, (edited) of Osoyoos' total slot win potential.
In a letter accompanying the reports, the corporation said the reason for any editing is to protect its financial or economic interests, to protect its relationship with an aboriginal government and to prevent the disclosure of any trade secrets used by the consultant agency in preparing the assessment.
The corporation is a Crown entity, however, and should be answerable to the public.
There's a certain logic behind hiding the methodology used to reach the numbers documented in the assessment reports, but it's very difficult to see how the numbers themselves could do anyone any harm.
This type of secrecy suggests that there is a political agenda behind the corporation's decision not to support the Desert Park proposal. And that it took nearly a year to send out two short, heavily censored documents insinuates such a theory even further.
Racino proponent Coun. Allan Carswell said the town dealt with the same kind of non-transparency from the corporation during their discussions before the proposal was shot down.
They didn't provide us with that information, they said 'You're too small,' he told the Times recently.
If the corporation is going to ignore the will of 88 per cent of Osoyoos's population that voted in favour of bringing horse racing back to Desert Park with the addition of slot machines, then a little more justification should be provided.
If government is not going to listen to the will of the people, then what's the point, Carswell said.
