Government subsidies for seniors' casino bus tours

[quote]Subsidizing commercial bus fares to bring patrons to casinos – particularly during the times of the day when casinos are at their slowest – is common across Canada, with hundreds of trips daily. The Quebec government pays some of the highest bus subsidies of any province – more than $3.2-million over the past two fiscal years to transport patrons to its casinos, according to figures obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. Casinos du Québec spokesman Patrice Lavoie said the province lays out an average of $7 for each person brought to its casinos by bus.

Although such bus tours were long thought to be benign – retirement homes routinely shuttle residents to casinos as part of their entertainment – researchers now question whether these trips potentially set seniors up for future gambling problems.

Barry Hall, a professor of social work at the University of Calgary, says casino bus tours represent a shrewd marketing strategy that caters to the egos of lonely seniors, particularly women. “I have observed the buses … and I have watched very handsome young men come out and squire the elderly ladies who are absolutely enthralled that they are being treated as royalty.â€[/quote]

One must think along the lines of a Scroogeian Capitalist Uber-pig to understand the bottom-feeder mentality.
On the first $3 a senior loses, they’ll get at least $2.25 x .9 (90% losers)
That’s almost 11% ROI. Better than money in the bank.

There must be a scam somewhere down the line or another tax catch net around the corner.

Oh c’mon. Like you guys wouldn’t do the same if you had a slot machine in your house? I think that is pretty hypocritical.

In fact, if these guys can do it then why not us? How much does a slot machine cost? I see no reason in this capitalistic democracy to disallow my desire to open a slot machine/Brazilian bodega in my basement suite.

“3Bs” is what I’ll call it. And the seniors will have a bus (the 3Bs-Line) lined up outside the Senior Centre every morning looking to invite them over to my place. If it works, then perhaps we’ll have more of these in-house shops opening up all over Roop. Think of the economic generation this will cause. Jobs, fun (which is good) and an end to the slot machine monopoly in town, which as we all know is not healthy economics. You can’t have monopolies.

The only sad thing is that there aren’t enough seniors to take advantage of my offerings. If only we had more old people in Roop.

Oh, and poor.

With these kind of policies … coming right up!

This little gem of information is new to me.  What a attitude towards our senior citizens!
congratulations politicians! YOU HAVE OUT DONE YOUR SELVES’! (And that is hard to believe!) Young men attracting older women to piss away their money!  My God! What have we come to? Get the money from the old ladies before the get to leave it to their children or grandchildren. We need it to pay the drunken RCMP security the obscene
amounts of money for this spectacle, plus the  horribly, horribly more obscene amounts for the actual "Games"
All this is just an ‘omen’ of the financial burden that will be around out necks for years after 2010!

So get this backfire: they decide to have cheap lunches at the Seniors as a fundraiser. There were only a couple people going to it. So they opened it up to everyone over 50, $5 for a home-made style lunch made by volunteers.
Now they serve 40-50 lunches a day. Shop owners, the couriers, everyone can drop in.

So there’s 45 less people going for lunch at restaurants. They all cut hours over lunch. People lost jobs and the remaining places are lobbying against a new Hotel/restaurant chain the Mayor and Council are courting to come here.

Volunteerism made sure they won’t get jobs, and cost other people theirs…

Oh no… stop the volunteers!!!

OK, so let me get this straight…Are you stating that due to the selflessness of volunteers and the generosity of the Seniors, the lunch crowd business in restaurants is doomed !! Are you kidding me?  Could it not be that these people who are taking lunch at the Seniors are donating to a worthy cause and possibly they don’t have time to sit in a restaurant anyway due to time restraints? MAYBE, there are less folks having lunch these days as they can’t afford it !And as for volunteers, I have 3 working for me,with me, and I don’t know what I would do without them.  I am hoping that you are joking just to get me riled  :imp:

Why would I joke about it?
Contract your economy enough and everything you do affects everything else. Are you going to say 500 lunches served by volunteers and made with donated food every day wouldn’t have a negative affect on Rupert’s restaurant industry?
Or for that matter volunteerism and fundraisers don’t condone and encourage gov’t to unload their social responsibilities?
Hell Gordo and the Vultures would love it if the cheap meals for others could fund free meals for the Care Centre. Toss in some 2nd hand clothes from the volunteer Thrift Shop and they could crank the rates up to 90% of Senior’s incomes.

I think you are going to extremes with this topic…We are discussing a fundraiser at the Seniors Center that is manned by dedicated volunteers trying to raise money for their event or their Center. I have to admit I know nothing of their mission.  The fact you think restaurants in Rupert will be threatened by a few people having lunch at what I would assume is a limited time frame event is ridiculous. Could it not be that the few who are showing up and paying their $5 for a home-made lunch are doing this to aid the endeavour and possibly don’t even have lunch in any of these soon to be doomed  restaurants. I also think that the volunteers “donate” the food from their own finances but I could be wrong… :unamused:

Open 5 days a week, every week for a year now.
Staffed by volunteers who are waitresses laid off from the bar, the Legion, other cafes.

So!  I think the Legion has been closed for years so if they don’t want to be volunteers, I don’t think anyone if forcing them. They do it because they want to help out. And the food is bought by the volunteers toward their cause and what about all the food donated to the SA and their volunteers, what about that?  They just sit on their butts all day and get waited on and move on to the next freebie. A donation to SA would be helpful also. What’s the big deal with the Seniors getting help anyway?  By the way, volunteer work looks great on your resume so where is the harm?

Yeah it does count on your resume.
But you need somewhere to take your resume to…

I live in a way smaller town. We’re down to 3 restaurants, all closed by 9 pm. Two more open at lunch. That’s it.

  You should preface your comment with the fact you don’t even live in Rupert instead of us being under the impression you are complaining about the volunteers working for OUR Seniors Center !

I’ve been around HTMF so long I figured you all knew that.
Click profile to find info on a member.

And I’m not complaining. Some of my friends are the volunteers, they’re ones who pointed things out.
But you demonstrated something, in that the cafe owners are too chickenshit to speak out here because they’ll incur the wrath of the goody two-shoes crowd who’d discredit the messenger because they can’t argue the message.
So the owners attack any new development instead, and poison the atmosphere for investment right when it’s needed most.
For the very reason there’s no ‘person’ to offend with an economic fact.

I wish it wasn’t true, but ‘community efforts’ and ‘non-profit societies’ here have actually prevented businesses opening to replace them. I know, I chaired on for a decade that was expressly formed to keep cableTV from sucking $50 a month from every home out of the local economy.
And ate shit for another decade for putting my money where my mouth was and started an actual local ISP when others were talking of forming another Society.

Another society “where where” another meeting, another social, another wasted lunch. I hear you loud an clear herbie_popnecker but if they had some directions and everyone was at the table for that goal then it has potential, but if they are there to social or build their resume the hell with it. Then they want to be a hero.

Where did this seemingly go off the proverbial track ?  I thought we were discussing the merits of volunteerism  or the lack thereof and suddenly, I don’t know where we are but obviously some folks out there don’t realize the value of a volunteer in todays society. I have been a volunteer in one aspect or another since I was 16, I was taught to give back and those times have been some of the most influential,inspiring, yet sometimes heartbreaking times of my life.  I have my job now due to the years I did volunteer with that organization. And if these volunteers  you speak of don’t like what they are doing, then move on or take their issues to the people in charge and possibly revamp the program. A volunteer should never feel nailed down to their position. They have the same rights as an employee or at least they should have.