City council should step up, support Hard Rock’s proposal

Seems to me and I suspect a good number of others that our city council really believes our city is in good shape. Let’s set aside crumbling roads, huge expenditures on transit, known budgets that are approved with built-in under-budgeted line items, service charges and the like.

Unless I am wrong, the Hard Rock group is willing to invest a few hundred million dollars in Ottawa. This will encourage gamblers that are spending money in Gatineau to try out a first-class venue in Ottawa.

It is the same old thing, though: Unless our councillors think of a project, they simply put barriers in front of private sector investors. Remember, it was city hall that expected the Bruce Firestone group to build an overpass before getting an arena in Kanata.

The city’s sights are set on Amazon and it cannot see why that company would be out of its mind to locate here. A pretty video cannot fill in the gaps.

Ottawa needs Hard Rock more than it needs us. Jobs, payments to the city and province, hotel rooms, municipal taxes, saving the racing industry — all help the bottom line for the city. Better to have gambling revenue stay in the city and province to support the few people whose addictions cost social service resources no matter where the casinos are.

Councillors, less arrogance and more corporate support is needed. Quit trying to return Ottawa to the old “city that fun forgot.” Brian Vachon, Greely