Randall Denley: Ontario won’t build ‘Vegas of the North.’ It shouldn’t want to

National Post · Randall Denley · 2026-11-04 23:54 UTC

The new provincial tourism strategy feels like a smokescreen to boost gambling revenue by sticking five casinos in a city of 100,000 people

The Ontario government’s addiction to gambling is quickly moving from troublesome to embarrassing. The non-stop ads from the flood of online gaming sites are bad enough, but now Premier Doug Ford wants to make Niagara Falls into the “Vegas of the North.”

At a time when Ontario is engaged in a damaging trade war with the U.S., why would the province want to emulate anything American, especially its tackiest city?

People in Niagara Falls haven’t even been consulted yet, but Ford’s plan is going ahead at full speed. He wants to add up to three major casinos to the two that are already there, even though the government’s online gambling is already cutting into casino revenue. They’ve also just added a new mega-casino in Toronto, not too far up the road.

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