Draft agenda

9 am Welcome: Minister Ida Chong

1 pm Skip Triplett

3 pm The panel on “Advocacy on behalf of Charitable and Non-profit Organizations during the Crisis in Gaming Funding” is at 3 pm. Amir Ali Alibhai (Alliance for Arts & Culture), Sandy Garossino (co-founder of Vancouver Not Vegas Coalition), and Lindsay Brown (Founder of Stop BC Arts Cuts, co-founder of Vancouver Not Vegas Coalition).

It is the hard work of these bingo associations and BCBC that helped build the gaming industry and it is regretful that decisions beyond their control have led to the dissolution of many of these associations and now of BCBC itself.

BCACG worked closely with BCBC over the last few years and appreciated very much that their leaders were strong advocates for all charities and non-profit organizations receiving gaming funds.  We hope the voices of their leaders continut to be heard as we move forward in these difficult times.

When the members of BCBC decided in March to dissolve, they also passed a resolution to donate their residual funds to BCACG.   This month BCACG received a cheque for approximately $5000 with the kind words that BCACG is a strong and viable organization, and that BCBC members support the efforts of BCACG to ensure that government honours the guarantee of gaming funding to charities and non-profits.

On behalf of the members of BCACG I would like to thank the members of BCBC for their very generous donation and their faith in BCACG.  The monies will be put in the advocacy fund and used towards the on-going efforts to accomplish the goals of BCBC and BCACG.

Thank you BCBC for your years of hard work and community service and for this generous donation.

Susan Marsden

President BCACG

BCACG would like to welcome Skip Triplett as Chair of the provincial government’s review of gaming grants. The website for the review is here, and the government’s media release is here (it includes a bio for Mr. Triplett).

We hope for a productive relationship with Mr. Triplett. Our main hope of course is that the review results in a recommendation to provide an equitable share of gaming revenues to BC’s charities and non-profits, and to restore eligibility to those groups edged out of gaming funding. We also seek interim funding to bridge the funding gap, since many organizations are on the brink of folding.

Please read the review’s terms of reference and give us your feedback either in the comments or by emailing Susan Marsden at the email address  on the sidebar.

We will update you as regularly as we can.

The terms of reference of the Review are as follows:

* Review existing legislation governing community gaming grant funding
* Conduct public-oral consultations in up to 14 communities in BC
* Receive and review written and social media submissions
* Review and provide options for a funding formula
* Review and provide options for criteria/eligibility for
community gaming grants
* Review and provide options for a multi-year funding model
* Review and provide options regarding the processes involved with
applying for and receive community gaming grants and,
* Provide options for the future role of government in community
gaming grants.

Vancouver Not Vegas, which fought a battle against a mega-casino in Vancouver that was partly motivated by anger over decreasing gaming contributions to charities, has issued a message to Premier Christy Clark:

If you really believe in “Families First,” save the Vancouver International Children’s Festival! Restore all gaming grants to all charities and non-profits in BC, and if you can’t find the money to do that despite skyrocketing gambling revenues, then why not look to the massive BCLC advertising budget? No one knows how large that budget it, but since the advertising is blanketing the province, it must be fairly massive. Suspend it and save the charities.

The full text of Vancouver Not Vegas’ message to Premier Clark is below.

Premier Clark: Do You Really Put Families First?

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: The Vancouver Not Vegas organization calls on Premier Clark to immediately suspend expensive advertising campaigns for the BC Lottery Corporation and invest that money in the Vancouver Children’s Festival and almost 1,500 other BC charities that are on the brink of failure from cuts in gaming grants and other government funding.

June 3, 2011: The Vancouver Children’s Festival struggled to open its 2011 season this week due to government cutbacks. Just two weeks before its opening, the festival was informed of a further 50% cut in its gaming grant. The Children’s Festival has educated, inspired and entertained more than 1.6 million children in BC since 1978. It is the latest in a long list of BC charities and non-profits that face imminent closure. The Kelowna Women’s Resource Centre has already closed its doors. Why are we spending money on expensive marketing and advertising campaigns for the BC Lottery Corporation when vital community organizations that really put “families first” are dying?

We call on Premier Clark to take urgent action on her “Families First” agenda and save our vital community institutions today. We ask Premier Clark, as an emergency measure, to immediately suspend all BC Lottery Corporation marketing and advertising and divert that budget to charities and non-profits facing closure, pending the outcome of the upcoming gaming review. Vancouver Not Vegas further asks Premier Clark to order the BC Lottery Corporation to disclose its marketing and advertising budget to the public that pays for it.

“With the Stanley Cup finals upon us, we anticipate a massive BC Lottery Corporation marketing blitz,” says Sandy Garossino, a Vancouver businesswoman and co-founder of Vancouver Not Vegas. “Let’s show that we’re serious about supporting communities and get our priorities straight. Casinos should pay for their own advertising. The taxpayer should not subsidize private enterprise while charities that serve the public are left to starve.”

“The expansion of gambling in BC has only hurt the non-profit sector. The greater the BC Lottery Corporation revenue, the worse it gets for charities,” says Susan Marsden, president of the BC Association for Charitable Gaming. “The situation is now extreme. Gambling revenues are at historic highs, while almost 1500 BC charities are on the brink of closing their doors. We are more concerned now that this year’s budget calls for even further cuts to gaming grants.” Lindsay Brown, co-founder of the Vancouver Not Vegas coalition, agrees. “The public was assured that if gambling were expanded, significant revenues would be directed to the charities and non-profits that serve communities. That promise was broken and now families and communities are taking the hit.”

In addition to the Children’s Festival, cuts to gaming grants have affected programs that support brain injury survivors, services to families of the Canadian Armed Forces servicemen and women, support for seniors and youth at risk, as well as transportation of sick children to hospitals and treatment centres across BC.

UPDATE: Gaming was in fact taken away from Min. Rich Coleman in March 2011, in Clark’s cabinet shuffle upon entering the premier’s office. The BC government’s cuts to charities were illegal, and we are glad that Min. Rich Coleman was removed as he did not communicate openly with BC’s charitable sector. However, we still see no significant change in policy under the BC Liberals’ new ministers responsible for gaming, Shirley Bond and Ida Chong. Christy Clark has yet to show any serious commitment to funding BC charities and non profits, even despite the fact that her government is in contempt of BC law (1999 Memorandum of Agreement stipulates that 33% of gaming revenues go to charitable sector; we are currently at less than 5%).

NON-PROFITS CALL ON CLARK TO REPLACE RICH COLEMAN

Charitable Gaming & Alliance For Arts Cite Crisis of Confidence

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

NON-PROFITS CALL ON CLARK TO REPLACE RICH COLEMAN
Charitable Gaming & Alliance For Arts Cite Crisis of Confidence

The BC Association for Charitable Gaming and the Alliance for Arts and Culture call on Premier-designate Christy Clark to replace Solicitor General Rich Coleman as Minister responsible for gaming in the Province of BC.

We cite:

• The crisis in public confidence in the integrity of the gaming industry;
• Loss of confidence of the charitable and non-profit sector in Minister Coleman’s leadership;
• The failure or refusal of Minister Coleman to meet or consult with the charitable sector respecting the impact of cuts to gaming grants;
• Political interference in the administration of gaming grants through the manipulation of eligibility criteria;
• Intimidation of individuals and organizations that challenge the granting system;
• The ongoing funding crisis in the charitable sector, in which close to 1500 non-profits may close within months.

In February, 2011, a message was conveyed to individuals close to the BCACG that unnamed persons in the provincial government were unhappy with the challenge by the BCACG and the Alliance to the Paragon Gaming casino application in Vancouver. It was stated that continuing this strategy could result in charities being hurt.

On Thursday, March 3, the BC Persons With AIDS Society received an unexpected cut of $50,000 from its gaming grant, which had remained stable for 6 years. BCPWAS has been a supporter of the challenge to Paragon Gaming’s application to expand its license. The implication is clear.

As Minister Coleman’s strong personal attack on Inspector Barry Baxter, head of the RCMP Proceeds of Crime Unit, demonstrates, there is a price to be paid for speaking up.

“For too long, charities and non-profits have been intimidated into silence,” says Susan Marsden, Executive Director of the BCACG. “Our member organizations support families and communities, and the crisis in gaming grants has become a crisis for too many British Columbians across the province. It is deeply unhealthy that organizations not only feel the financial pressure, but are silenced by fear of the minister responsible.”

“We note that Premier designate Clark has called for a comprehensive review of gaming policy in BC; an initiative which we strongly support.” stated Amir Ali Alibhai, Executive Director of the Alliance for Arts and Culture.

Both the Alliance and the BCACG jointly maintain that given the critical lapses in competence and integrity in the management and administration of the gaming grants process, and the fear of retribution that charities and non-profits have toward the program, “we do not have confidence that this review can be adequately conducted while Minister Coleman controls the portfolio”, concluded Mr. Alibhai.

For ten years Minister Coleman has been the architect of British Columbia’s gambling industry, of grants to charities and non-profits, of the marketing and promotion of gambling in BC, and now of its policing.

The time for change has arrived.

-30-

Media contact:
Susan Marsden
BC Association for Charitable Gaming
w: 250.624.3207 (21)
m: 778.839.3207
e: smarsden@citytel.net

Alliance for Arts and Culture
100 — 938 Howe Street
Vancouver, BC V6Z 1N9
604.681.3535
e: communications@allianceforarts.com

Sandy Garossino is a BCACG advocate. Click on photo to see YouTube video of part of her presentation to the Vancouver Not Vegas! forum, where she speaks about the expansion of gaming currently running alongside massive cuts to charities.

This is good news, but the fight is not over. The City does not necessarily have influence over provincial government policy, but this motion will send a message.

The following is the BCACG’s letter to Vancouver City Council, supporting Councillor Ellen Woodsworth’s motion (seconded by Counc. David Cadman) to support the rights of charities to gaming proceeds.

The BCACG is in full support of this motion. For history on the Vancouver casino issue, please see our post here.

Our letter to Vancouver City Council in support of the motion is below.

Mayor and Council
City of Vancouver
453 West 12th Avenue
Vancouver, BC
V5Y 1V4

January 17, 2011

Dear Mayor and Council:

Re: CD-1 Rezoning – 777 Pacific Boulevard (Hotel/Entertainment/Casino
Complex)

I write on behalf of the BC Association for Charitable Gaming to support Councillor Ellen Woodsworth’s motion respecting the Edgewater Casino gambling expansion application.

The following are comments taken from our online petition to the BC provincial government, seeking reinstatement of gaming funding:

We are a drop-in Seniors center. Our members need a place to go that gets them away from the lonely existence. Our Paradise center is a DESTINATION, that doesn’t cost very much to join, has lots of free activities, and lets them enjoy themselves. It is not right that our Grants are taken away, leaving closed centers and lonely, vulnerable Seniors with nothing to do.

My nephew, who has… a fatal neuro-muscular disease, participates in the riding programs offered by the North Fraser Therapeutic Riding Association (NFRTA). His participation adds to the quality of his life. In the absence of (the Bingo) grant the NFTRA’s programs and even its very existence is in jeopardy.

I am a brain injury survivor and I need the support from the South Okanagan Similkameen Brain Injury Society to have a better quality of life.   The Society has kept me alive.

The organizations described here are typical of the many hundreds, if not thousands, of charities that wrote letters or appeared at municipal gaming license hearings across the province, in support of the expansion of gambling. Their letters and appearances were based on the express representation by the province and private developers that increased gaming revenue would secure funding to charities. Similar representations were made to the City of Vancouver by the original Edgewater Casino applicants.

Vancouver and BC charities and non-profits are devastated. Gaming grants, a vital source of revenue for so many organizations, are now far below the levels of 1997, the year the first slot machines were approved in BC. These cuts affect transportation of sick children to hospitals across the province (Shriners), support services for families of soldiers serving in Afghanistan (the Legion), seniors, the arts, sports, the disabled, crisis centres, and myriad other interests.

In Vancouver alone, the loss of gaming grants is difficult to assess, but appears to be well in excess of $4 million annually. Our weakest and most vulnerable are stripped of services, while (as Pete McMartin has documented in the Vancouver Sun) hundreds of millions of dollars of public money flows to powerful private interests.

This is in violation of our Memorandum of Agreement with the province of British Columbia, of which Council has been apprised. Details may be easily accessed at our website–BCACG.com.

On behalf of many hundreds of Vancouver charities and non-profits, and almost 6,800 province-wide, we ask this Council to defer expansion of Edgewater Casino’s gaming capacity pending: the reinstatement to these organizations of the gaming funds cut by government in 2009; and the satisfactory commitment on the part of government to include these organizations in the allocation of gaming proceeds in the long-term.

Sincerely,

Susan Marsden
President BCACG

The BCACG has two positions concerning the current charitable gaming funding crisis, one short term and one long-term.

For the short term BCACG requests that the gaming funding crisis among not-for-profit organizations and charities be addressed by:

1. returning funding levels to those of 2008. This means returning $36 million from BCLC proceeds to this charitable sector.
2. reinstating the eligibility criteria that was in place in 2008. This means reinstating arts and culture, adult sports, and environment groups, and all festivals, at 100% levels and returning service organizations and museums from 50% to 100% levels.

For the long-term BCACG requests:

1. that the government honour the 1999 Memorandum of Agreement between BCACG and the Province, which allocated 33% of gaming profits to the charitable sector;
2. that the responsibility for establishing eligibility for gaming funding to charities and non-profit organizations be transferred to an entity at arm’s length from the government;
3. that this arm’s length entity operate with a mandate to fund any community-based charity or non-profit organization that is a registered society in good standing, that provides services to the public at large, and that has presented a fiscally responsible budget.

By Sandy Garossino, BCACG advocate. First printed in The Vancouver Observer.

Revelations of our casinos’ extraordinary vulnerability to organized crime—and the deals that Rich Coleman has struck with casino developers—should give British Columbians considerable pause.

The financial records of the BC Lottery Corporation give cold comfort to anyone looking for reassurance there.

Pete McMartin’s piece in the Vancouver Sun details the transfer of some $400 million to private casino companies since 1997. But this is only part of the story.  Since fiscal 2005, $48.5 million has also gone into capital spending in community gaming facilities. The word “community” is a euphemism here—almost all these operations function as privately held junior casinos.

A review of the BCLC 2010 annual report suggests that the corporation may transfer up to 73% of its capital expenditure budget directly into private hands annually.

And the velocity of transfers to private interests is accelerating. The BCLC projects $350 million in capital spending over the next 3 years. Altogether,  the period of fiscal 2005/06 through ?scal 2012/13, the BC Lottery Corporation projects total capital expenditures of $724 million.

You read that right. 724. Million. Dollars.

For a crown corporation that does not own or operate any bricks and mortar gambling facilities, this is a breathtaking figure. Payments to private companies for capital asset development should not even be booked as capital expenditures as there is no corresponding acquisition of a BCLC capital asset. It is an anomalous payment that should simply be booked as an operating expense.

But the BC public should be very concerned that huge sums are being transferred to very profitable private companies, including foreign owned operators, to develop theirown private real estate. And then we hand them the keys.

It has been claimed that these capital investments are necessary to build the gaming revenue stream that delivers over a billion dollars to government annually.  Leaving aside the myriad policy questions embedded in that position, this is simply not true.

Let’s look at our closest neighbour, Alberta.  Their AGLC (Alberta Gaming and Liquor Commission) operates on a model roughly equivalent to our own. But the contrasts are startling, and not in a good way.

Serving a population of 3.7 million, 800,000 less than BC’s, the AGLC generates $1.4 billion in net revenue, compared with our $1.08 billion net. This is a return, by the way, of $378 per capita, compared with BCLC’s performance of $239 per capita.

Alberta records capital assets of $200 million, and BC’s are $147 million. Given the relative operational sizes, BC’s capital expenditure would be expected to come in at about 75% of Alberta’s, or roughly $30 million annually.  Instead we are clocking at more than three times that spending. Last year we spent $92 million in capital expenditures, a figure slated to rise to $120 million by the next fiscal year.

To put it another way, Alberta generates $35.89 in profits for every dollar of capital expenditure, and BC comes in at $11.72 to one.  This disparity only becomes more glaring when the population differential is considered.  In terms of return on capital spending per citizen, Alberta buries us—deriving $4 for every $1 we make.

And they do this without coddling private developers and interfering with free market competition between hotels, bars and restaurants.

While Alberta’s business performance leaves us in the dust, perhaps the most troubling aspect of this whole story is in the treatment of charities and non-profits.

Gambling was legalized in Canada in 1969 for the express purpose of supporting charities and non-profits with non-tax dollars. For better or worse, an entire economic architecture has built up over 40 years on the foundation of this legislation, generating significant GDP and employment.

Most charities do not have large staffs and development offices in affluent communities. They rely on a broad and effective network of volunteers and fairly low-paid but exceptionally high value employees. They run seniors’ centres, aboriginal suicide prevention crisis lines, brain injury support groups, sports and arts organizations, and meet thousands of other needs we can’t even imagine. They are the silent invisiblea rmy that we cannot live without. Sometimes we never think of them until the day we need them ourselves. And when that day comes, they do not fail us.

Civil society cannot exist without our charities and non-profits, yet it is a common human error to mistake a thing’s value for its price.

On a day that stunned the entire BC non-profit world, Rich Coleman moved in August 2009 to claw back tens of millions of dollars already committed to charities in communities across the province. The effects were catastrophic, as most organizations, relying on government commitments, had set budgets months in advance with no alternative source of funds for money already spent or committed.

The assault on charities and non-pro?ts continued in 2010, when the sector lost 28 percent of its gaming funds overnight. Ignoring a legal agreement to fund the charitable sector with 33% of gaming revenues, Rich Coleman slashed the 08/09 allotment of$156 million to $112.5 million (or 10.42% of net earnings) for 09/10.

A poor performance when compared with Alberta, which funneled a full $323 million (or 24% of net) to its charitable and non-profit sector in 09/10.

In fact, Alberta’s gaming industry generates $87.30 per capita for charities and non-pro?ts, while BC’s contribution is only $25.

The Alberta government is about 3.5 times more generous than the BC government and about 4 times more profitable on a return on capital investment measurement.

Capital spending by the AGLC equals 12% of remittances to charities, while in BC the proportion is 88%. By 2012, transfers to private developers and casino operators will equal the allotment to charities.

Charities and non-profits have been thrown to the curb, while hundreds of millions of dollars in public funds pour continuously into the pockets of private casino developers and operators. When challenged on BC?s poor record of remittances of gambling proceeds to charities, Rich Coleman, architect of BC’s gambling industry, demurred, saying that the provincial government has other priorities now.

Those priorities could not be clearer.

In charts below,  please note that numbers are reported in millions:

Please see these articles on Spencer Chandra Herbert’s questioning of the high subsidies given to casino owners at the same time as charities received deep cuts in their gaming grants.

Articles were published in the Vancouver Sun and The Province.