WESTLOCK – Westlock County has added its voice to the growing number of municipalities urging the Alberta Gaming, Liquor and Cannabis Commission (AGLC) to allow Capital City Casinos to move its Camrose Resort Casino to Edmonton.
At their April 25 meeting, councillors voted 7-0 to pen a letter to the board chair and CEO of the AGLC in advance of a May 10 appeal of the September 2021 decision that denied the move. Councillors also agreed to forward the letter to finance minister Travis Toews, area MLAs Glenn van Dijken and Shane Getson, the Town of Westlock and all the municipalities within the Pembina Zone of the Rural Municipalities of Alberta (RMA) — previously, the County of Barrhead, Town of Barrhead and Woodlands County have all voiced support for the casino move.
For councillors, the issue isn’t so much about the casino’s physical location but centres around creating an “equitable provincial gaming model” with county inter-governmental advisor Jared Shaigec noting during his presentation that past reports by RMA and AGLC noted a distinct advantage for urban charities in terms of wait time and revenue.
“It’s about finding a line that benefits all. We want a more equitable and fair gaming model. This has a huge impact on our community (groups) and their annual revenues. They’ve projected it’ll take four or five years just to get in to work a casino … for our little groups that depend on this, this is critical,” said reeve Christine Wiese. “Hopefully with more of us sending in letters it will have a bigger impact. We need as much support as we can on this.”
If the Camrose facility does move to Edmonton, it will remain in the rural pool for charities — charitable organizations are usually assigned casinos in their region, and rural organizations are relegated to casinos outside the two main cities meaning they receive less money.
“We have a number of organizations within our county that depend on casinos for their livelihood and to keep the lights on,” said CAO Tony Kulbisky. “If there is an inequity and a long wait time, I think it’s incumbent on council to put a position forward so our county organizations know that it’s important and we’re at least acknowledging what the concerns are.”
Coun. Jared Stitsen called penning the letter “something we need to do” as casino revenue “keeps the light on” at local community halls and funds a variety of charitable groups. The RMA notes that the casinos in St. Albert and Camrose "currently produce the lowest per-event revenues and have among the highest wait times (for not-for-profit organization casino dates) in the province” while Edmonton's five casinos produce the highest average per-event revenues in Alberta and have the shortest wait times. The RMA also calculates that rural groups in the Camrose and St. Albert regions have been short-changed over $250 million since the inception of charitable gaming versus their urban peers, and note that if the Camrose casino closes, 650 rural charities will lose all their gaming revenue.
“This funding is very important,” Stitsen added.
According to past reporting, one of the reasons Capital City Casinos applied for the move is that the current location is no longer financially viable, in large part, because of two decisions made by the AGLC. The first decision dates to 2019 when they approved the relocation of the Century Mile Racetrack and Casino from Edmonton to Nisku and the other came last year when they approved the construction of the new Louis Bull First Nation Casino which is located on Queen Elizabeth Highway II between Highways 611 and 613 as both are within 60 kilometres of the Camrose gaming facility.
• With files from Barry Kerton
