Cedar Park United Church in Pointe Claire.
October 4, 2005
Good evening. It is a privilege for me to be invited back to address this group on the issue of gambling and in particular the government's mission to inundate us with gambling opportunities. Tonight other concerned citizens join me, and we are here to ask you to join us in a concerted effort to keep the casino off the island of Montreal. We have united people representing the population of Point St. Charles, St. Henri, Chinatown, and through a coalition, EmJeux, of which I am a small part, representing the entire province of Quebec. I have been working for the past 10 years to stop the expansion of gambling. Although I have not succeeded in stopping expansion, I know for certain that I have been successful in slowing it down. It is extremely difficult to reason or to speak logically with an addict. The governments of all the provinces have become addicts. They have become addicted to the revenues. For 10 years I spoke softly with governmental Ministers and Premiers. I addressed delicate issues while wearing kid gloves. It does not work. The time has come when we must insist that those we elected to power start to protect the people. It is time to stop the insanity.
Those of you who were present on May 31st of this year may recall that I prefaced my presentation with a disclaimer, as I have done before every presentation since 1995. That is to say that I neither oppose nor endorse social gambling. So much has happened in recent times, and in fact has been happening over a long period of time, that I have been forced out of the neutral zone. It has become necessary for all activists to adopt a position for or against.
Having said that, I must reaffirm that I am not a prohibitionist nor do I oppose a person's right to freedom of choice. But the choice must be one of informed consent. One must know the consequences of their decision and be prepared to deal with them. The gambling industry, which sadly in Canada is the government, does not want the public to know the negative impact of gambling on the gambler, on those close to the gambler and on society as a whole. They paint a lovely portrait of gambling as entertainment and they create an illusion of glamour, success and all the pleasures that financial gain can provide. In doing so, they destroy the work ethic, by instilling the belief that all one needs to succeed is the right numbers in a lottery, a jackpot on a slot machine, or a winning hand in a Poker tournament.
Those of us who are concerned with the consequences of expanded gambling find ourselves once again in a David and Goliath scenario. Loto-Quebec is using unlimited resources, which originated from the pockets of Quebecers, to commission studies that will tell us that the casino should be moved from its present location to a site near the Old Port. We must compete with their strategies, while operating on shoestring budgets. They entertain the Chamber of Commerce with lavish sit-down luncheons while we scramble to find adequate means of responding to the misleading and biased data that they maneuver so well. They would have us believe that a majority of Quebecers polled are in favour of moving the casino onto the island of Montreal. It would be interesting to know what the methodology was and what questions were asked as well as who was polled. A poll can always yield the desired result by phrasing the question appropriately. My question in a poll would simply be, "Would you sooner see more than $1 billion spent by the Quebec government on a new casino or on hospitals, schools and infrastructure?"
This is not an issue that concerns the good citizens of Point St. Charles. It is not an issue that concerns the population of St. Henry. It is not an issue that concerns the people in the Chinese community. It is an issue that needs to be addressed by every person in Montreal, and indeed by every person in the province of Quebec. Problem gambling in Canada has become a national public health issue. According to prevalence studies, which I believe underestimate, there are approximately 120 000 pathological gamblers in Quebec. There are an additional 180 000 gamblers who are problematic to a lesser degree, but nonetheless problematic.
The ripple effect created by an addict will impact 4-14 others. That is to say that the 300 000 problem gamblers that our government accepts as a reasonable number will affect a minimum of 1 200 000 Quebecers.
Every new opportunity to gamble increases the number of people who will become unwilling victims. Before the casino was opened on Ile Notre Dame there was opposition touching on the same issues that we must address currently. In 1990 there was debate and apprehension among the Cabinet of the Bourassa government about the proposal to open a casino. Yves Seguin was strongly opposed to the plan even though he was the Minister of Revenue. It had been suggested that the opening of a casino would increase crime in the city, and the Montreal Police were consulted. Those who opposed the casino also projected that problem gambling would increase with easy access to a casino.
In the end the cabinet agreed to permit the casino to be built if the location were Ile Notre Dame. The point made for building the casino on Ile Notre Dame was that it would be an attraction for tourists as it was the site of Expo 67. Well, they were wrong. Only 10% of Casino visitors are from outside the province. With greater competition in United States and Canada, this percentage will continue to fall. The only reason that Montreal Casino has lasted this many years is because they have managed to addict a significant number of local residents from Montreal and perhaps a fifty-mile radius. Tourists come to Montreal in the summer for the Grande Prix, various festivals, and just as a holiday destination. While here they may decide to visit the casino. That being the case they will go whether it's on the island or in the city. But people simply do not come to Montreal exclusively for the casino. If they live anywhere except Utah or Hawaii they can find a casino within a very short distance from home. Recent studies in the United States determined that the only destination casinos in all of North America are in Nevada, New Jersey and, until the recent disaster, Mississippi. A destination casino cannot exist in an area where there are not many casinos to pick from.
The marketing people at Loto-Quebec do their research, and they do it well. Moving the casino to the Peel Basin will put it in easy reach of Montrealers who work downtown. What used to be called a "liquid lunch hour" will become a choice of lunch or gambling. Problem gambling experts know that gambling when you are under time limitations is hazardous. There is a vast difference between planning to go to the casino on Ile Notre Dame on a certain day after work or dropping in to one near your office for a "few minutes" on the way home.
Impulse gambling may be considered much more costly and can be compared with impulse buying. We always tend to overspend when there is no specific plan and we follow our instincts. Marketing analysts at Loto-Quebec know this and will exploit it. Montreal Casino will never be a threat to casinos in Las Vegas or Atlantic City. Those are truly tourist destinations and must be competitive because of the number of casinos to choose from. Montreal Casino offers little, by comparison, in the way of perks because they have a monopoly. Even Niagara Falls, where I attended a conference in April 2005, relies heavily on local gamblers and gamblers from the Toronto area eight months of the year. Casinos are never of benefit to anyone except the operators. The odds are so heavy, in favour of the house, that although you can win, in the long run only the house wins.
Economic Development Minister Claude Bechard says there will be no automatic green light for the $1.2-billion project to build a new casino. "We should look at all the aspects, all the consequences," he added. But who will do the study? Who will fund the study? Who will be sure that the consultant that does the study produces favourable results? Score 10 if you answered, "Loto-Quebec" to those three questions. Politicians use industry-funded misinformation to justify gambling expansion. Gambling drains the local economy because money lost at casinos is not spent on goods and services. Money spent in the market place adds to the tax base, yet our government representatives tell us that if not for gambling we would be burdened with increased taxes. Crime increases everywhere a casino opens, yet the industry is able to fund studies to determine the opposite. That is because they conveniently omit crime such as money laundering, loan sharking, theft from employers, fraud, arson, embezzlement, domestic violence, child neglect, and prostitution to name a few. M. Cousineau stated he intends to consult with all concerned parties and would be prepared to implement the appropriate preventive measures. This would be a novel approach since Loto-Quebec does precious little to prevent problem gambling in their present facility. They are very lax at permitting under-age gamblers because "they look 18". They need to establish self-banning programs that are effective, and to train security staff to recognize problem gamblers and how to conduct an intervention.
If Loto-Quebec and M. Cousineau truly have social conscience, they will stay where they are and close between 4:00 A.M. and 10:00 A.M. Give the victims half a chance at saving themselves. Enough of the stories about gamblers whose family have no idea what happened to them as they disappear for days and weeks on end. The large majority of players found in the casino between those early morning hours do not appear to be entertaining themselves. More often they are chasing their losses. In November 2004 during an interview by Henry Aubin for the Montreal Gazette, Yves Seguin said, "I see casinos and VLTs as things that I'd close down if I could." Bravo, M. Cousineau, and I say that in all sincerity. However, I predict a short future for M. Cousineau in government. It will be the second time in his career that he resigns and although I can only speculate I believe his first resignation had to do with the opening of the casino on Ile Notre Dame.
It is imperative that the residents of the West Island and of the Lakeshore join with the coalition of citizens against movement of the casino. Nobody is immune to the addiction that gambling can cause. Gambling is the most hidden of all addictions and can go undetected by family, friends and co-workers for years. It is the most "respectable" of all addictions yet potentially as deadly as an addiction to cocaine or heroin. In my day to day operation I read of crimes committed by bank managers, nurses, teachers and just this week, a judge who was sentenced to 28 months in prison for a crime committed to finance her addiction to gambling. I have met over the past 10 years those who have stolen from their employers amounts ranging from several thousand, to several hundred thousand, to more than $1 million dollars. These are not typical criminals. These are people who before gambling took control of their life, were hard working, honest citizens. It usually started with "borrowing" some company money with every intention of repaying it after a win.
If you are not directly affected by gambling, you are definitely affected indirectly. We pay more for policing, the justice system, the cost of property insurance, and someday our tax dollars are going to be used to pay the social costs that we are accumulating since the day the casino opened in 1993. Suicides related to gambling have gone from very few in 1993 and 1994 to an average of 30 annually, or one every two weeks.
That is only a fraction of the real number because the coroner only counts suicides where a note was left or where the family confirms a gambling addiction. Yet, when a call from an English-speaking gambler in distress is made to the problem gambling helpline they are given two choices. One of these choices is our organization, Viva Consulting Family Life Inc. and the other is Pavillion Foster.
My phone is call forwarded to me wherever I may be, in Montreal or across the globe, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and 365 days a year. It is that important that a person who is reaching out for help speaks to someone immediately. I know of cases where I have saved a life. Compulsive gamblers act on impulse when they gamble, and also when they make a call for help. If they are not, at least spoken to if not seen they usually won't try again in the immediate future. A call to Pavillion Foster after 4:30 P.M. will connect to a recording that states their hours of operation are from 8:00 A.M. to 4:30 P.M. Monday to Thursday and 8:00 A.M. to 4:00 P.M. Friday. They are closed on weekends and holidays.
If a caller is fortunate enough to reach someone during those hours they will be given an appointment for an assessment if they are able to wait approximately six weeks. By then most callers will no longer be interested in quitting, if they are in fact still alive. Foster's is funded by the government and we are not, mainly because they use a harm-reduction treatment program and we use an abstention-based treatment. Harm-reduction translates to "gamble responsibly", while abstention-based means "don't gamble" and that affects the bottom line of Loto-Quebec, namely revenues.
Because we are playing, not with statistics, but with human lives, we must unite in an effort to halt the further expansion of gambling. We must do everything in our means to convince our elected officials that the health of our citizens must take precedence over the endangerment that will be caused by placing a new casino in easy reach of Montrealers. I can guarantee that many people who in 12 years have never been inside the Montreal casino will be attracted to the new easy-to-reach casino. A whole generation of children who today are pre-teens will be of legal age by the time the new casino opens. There are no definitive statistics on the number of teenagers battling compulsive gambling problems nationwide, but some experts agree with the 80-15-5 rule.
Eighty percent of the kids who gamble will have no impact on their lives, 15 percent will have some problem, and 5 percent will become addicted. Today's youth are the first generation to grow up in a society where gambling is legal and it is our role as parents and as grandparents to protect them. If not us, then who? What, other than six figure annual salaries, can permit lottery corporation executives to cause the amount of damage to society that they do and still be able to look at themselves in the mirror? We must break the cycle if we are to save the generations of the future and salvage what we still can of the present one. If we don't help alleviate the problem, then we are part of the problem. It may not be easy stopping the casino project, but it will be rewarding when we succeed.
I Thank you and I welcome your questions or comments.
