A "once in a generation" opportunity for a new casino complex that will create thousands of jobs and bring in billions of investment dollars is Toronto's for the asking, the chairman of the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp. said Friday. "It's yours if you want it," Paul Godfrey said after renewing his call for a downtown casino in a speech to the Toronto Board of Trade.
"You don't want it? Well, we've got to move on." Godfrey's latest pitch for a "gaming entertainment centre" in Toronto comes just a few weeks before the city's executive committee is expected to discuss the proposal. He's made it no secret that he wants to see a gaming facility built in Toronto's downtown or along the waterfront, but time is running out, said Godfrey, who also sits on the board as director of Tourism Toronto. OLG hasn't "drawn a line in the sand" with a deadline, but it would like to know the city's decision by January or February at the latest so it can proceed with the project as planned in 2013, he said. OLG won't impose a facility on any municipality and there's been plenty of interest among 33 other communities to host the new gaming facility, he said. Putting it somewhere other than Toronto won't produce as many jobs or the same growth, Godfrey said.
