Horse racing industry can restructure: Buchanan
Havelock farmer one of three former cabinet ministers on new horse racing industry transition panel
HAVELOCK — Downsizing is the only realistic option for Ontario’s horse racing i ndustry, a former Ontario agriculture minister who lives in Havelock says.
“I wouldn’t say it’s over. I’d say what we’re looking at is probably a restructuring,” Elmer Buchanan told QMI Agency.
He’s one of three panelists appointed last week by Agriculture Minister Ted McMeekin to find ways to keep the racing industry alive after the province stops providing funding from slot-machine revenue March 31.
Buchanan was elected in 1990 as the New Democrat MPP for the former riding of HastingsPeterborough. A former high school teacher and vice-principal who grew up on a farm, he now lives in Havelock, where he and partner Lee Resmer raise alpacas.
Buchanan is also vice-chairman of the Ontario Farm Products Marketing Commission.
Also appointed last week to the panel are John Snobelen and John Wilkinson, also former provincial cabinet ministers. The panel has no chairman; Buchanan said the three “decided we were sort of equals.”
He said he accepted McMeekin’s appointment because he enjoys working in agriculture, regardless of the commodity; it will be a challenge and it Isn’t partisan. Snobelen was a Progressive Conservative minister, Wilkinson a Liberal.
The panelists will help allocate the $50 million in transition funding the province is allotting over three years. In that time, Buchanan said, the industry will involve fewer people but become sustainable.
“I don’t think we can restructure and still have the same size industry,” Buchanan said. “It’s going to be in a reduced form. We’re not kidding ourselves about that.”
Those in the industry must work with the panel as its members work toward an August deadline for their report to the province, he said.
Panelists will have their own ideas, he said, but industry input remains essential.
“If people don’t come forward with ideas then our panel will not have much of a report.
“From our perspective, the decision on ending the slots funding is done. Our job is not to listen to the people who are saying ‘Let’s put slots back’ or something,” but what to determine what happens next,” Buchanan said.
The panel’s duty is therefore to prepare a “soft landing,” he said.
Sue Leslie, president of the Ontario Horse Racing Industry Association, said she’s willing to work with the panel.
“We take this as an indication that the government is recognizing the value that our industry brings to Ontario's agricultural economy and to the public in general,” Leslie said last week.
She disagreed, however, with the government plan to provide only transitional funding.
“It is not transitional funding that is needed but a long-term funding plan that will ensure a vibrant industry in the future,” she said.
Though money is a major part of the panel’s work, Buchanan said the trio — with staff provided by the government — will also take steps to help workers and ensure humane treatment of surplus horses.
That could include uses other than racing, adoption through rescue groups— but killing them is “not really on the table at this point,” he said.
“There are several organizations in Ontario and Canada that deal with racing horses that are no longer being used.”
Buchanan said people working in the sector may not necessarily have skills that could be used in other jobs.
They must be given options to “let them stay in rural Ontario and be productive” and the panel will work with colleges and universities on that front.
The panel will spend this week in Toronto, the following week in Guelph. Visits to Ottawa and Sudbury are possible, but Buchanan said it’s hoped people who want a say in the process will travel to meetings organized by the panel. A series of townhall forums isn’t an efficient use of the panel’s limited time, Buchanan said.
Asked if the format leaves racing advocates enough time to respond, Buchanan noted the government’s three-year window for funding will help. All options need not be set by summer’s end.
“I think that’s an attempt to not just do a one-off and then you’re on your own.”
In the meantime, the three exministers will be sorting through about 700 pages of background.
“The three of us are very much committed people have said.
NOTE: Comments may be submitted to the panel online at www.omafra.gov.on.ca/english/a bout/transition/index.html — With files from QMI Agency Belleville Intelligencer to hearing what to say,” Buchanan