Last Updated: Thursday - 09/30/2010

Alberta's 'false Eden' dulls our ability to speak and act

Forty years ago, there was none of this - no stand-alone casinos, no VLTs, no national or regional lotteries, no high-stakes bingos, no Internet gambling. Dedicated gamblers found ways to play high-stakes poker, but even they were largely hidden from the public eye. Canada was a simpler and, it should be said, a better place because of the comparatively low level of gambling.

Since then, gambling - a useless activity in terms of its contribution to the common good - has bitten off a major chunk of the nation's economic activity. Further, the lives of many people and their families have been destroyed because of harmful forms of gambling.

Politicians love gambling. Like tobacco and alcohol consumption, it enables them to increase revenues without raising taxes. Indeed, governments are Canada's worst gambling addicts. One of the main purposes of government is to protect the vulnerable. Yet by nurturing and promoting the gambling culture, governments directly exploit the vulnerable and have created a new class of social and economic victims.

As mentioned, governments also raise money from the sale of alcohol and tobacco. However, these substances are taxed in order to discourage their use. Governments cannot be accused of promoting a culture of excessive drinking and smoking.

The Alberta government has likely done more than any other to entrench gambling as a way of life. It has shamelessly allowed the building of as many casinos as the market will bear. It has made highly addictive VLTs as widely available as possible. It has also lured hundreds, if not thousands, of non-profit groups into supporting this culture by giving them a share of the winnings. It has co-opted the very groups who would be most likely to speak out against the incredible social damage done by the gambling epidemic.

Virtually the only group to raise its voice clearly and consistently against the culture of harmful gambling has been the Catholic Bishops of Alberta. Since 1998, the bishops' conference and individual bishops have issued several public statements and held meetings with Catholic groups, including Catholic school leaders, that raise money from casinos and other forms of harmful gambling.

They have said the gambling culture promises "a false Eden," a phony paradise. This culture is creating a society where creative personal initiative is dulled by thoughts of making it rich through games of chance.

Too few people, Catholics included, have taken the bishops seriously. But if we think our faith means anything more than pie in the sky when you die, then it's high time our lives bore witness to that. We should be harbingers of a kingdom of justice and love for the vulnerable. At the absolute minimum, we should end our complicity with a most pernicious form of exploitation.

Glen Argan

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