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 almost 1,500 BC charities are non-profits that are on the brink of failure due to cuts in gaming grants and other government funding.
Premier Clark: Please truly put Families First by saving the Children’s Festival and other non-profits and charities.
Vancouver International Children’s Festival is at risk of closure after nearly 35 years. And hundreds of other festivals, organizations, charities and non-profits are in the same boat.
Money from gaming is simply not going to the charities and non-profits who were the justification for BC gambling expansion in the first place. Why are we seeing gaming funding removed from family festivals and other charities, and siphoned into projects like the BC Place Stadium Roof? What about the massive revenue increases for the BC Lottery Corp this past decade? None of those increases have gone to the charities and non-profits who made that expansion possible! Now they are shutting down all over the province. Premier Clark, please deal with this travesty. This is a breach of trust with the people of British Columbia. Use the BCLC ad budget if necessary.
While we would like to eventually see a de-linking of charities from gaming, and see them funded instead out of general revenue, for the time being we have no choice but to ask for charity gaming grants to be restored from existing gambling revenue. How can the government continue expanding gambling in this province in the name of charities, while withholding the percentage of revenue they were promised?
