Mayor, MPP press Ford on track promise
A lot of promises were made during the recent provincial election campaign.
There’s one vow Doug Ford made that both Fort Erie Mayor Wayne Redekop and Niagara Falls MPP Wayne Gates say they’re holding him to: To reopen the slots at the Fort Erie Race Track.
Gates said he invited Ford to attend the Prince of Wales Stakes with him at the Fort Erie track on July 23, and if he accepts he’d like to take the new premier on a tour of the building where the slots formerly were located.
Shortly after the June 7 election, Gates said, he spoke with Ford inside the legislature about his promise to reopen the slots.
“I asked him, ‘Are you committed to doing the track?’ He said, ‘I want to help those people.’ That was his comment,” Gates said.
“I’m going off my memory, but I know his people have had conversations with the track, trying to work out scheduling to come to the track next week.”
Under the previous Liberal government, the slots at the Fort Erie track closed in April 2012, putting approximately 220 people out of work. The slots operated there for 13 years.
Although they attracted American visitors and in their final year earned approximately $29 million in revenue, the slots were closed as part of a larger reorganization of Ontario’s gaming system.
In May during a Progressive Conservative campaign stop in Port Colborne, Ford said he “absolutely” supported reopening the slots.
“I’m a big supporter of the horse racing industry – in fact, the biggest track in the country, Woodbine, is right in my riding,” he said, calling the slots removal from Fort Erie a “mistake” by the Liberal government.
In an interview this week, Redekop said he too has brought up the slots with Ford.
“He committed to bringing the slots back to Fort Erie,” Redekop said. “That’s something that I addressed in my congratulatory letter to the new premier … They mean jobs, they mean revenue and they mean the potential for new visitors to the Fort Erie Race Track.”