Niagara Falls Doesn't Need to Be Doug Ford's Vegas. It Needs to Be Home.

I was born in 1996. Same year the new casino opened in Niagara Falls.

We grew up together, basically. Twenty-nine years of watching this city evolve, or try to.

Now Doug Ford's talking about "bold vision" and "world-class attractions," and look, I get it. I understand the appeal. An electric tram system? Turning historic buildings into new hotels? These things sound to pair new-age infrastructural innovation with ecological preservation, and I can see the vision. Economic development matters. Tourism is our engine, and investment drivers are real.

It sounds great. Until we dig deeper.

I'm not against development. I support the spectacle when it's done thoughtfully.

But here's what I can't ignore after 29 years: the model isn't working. And doubling down on it, making Niagara Falls into some "mini-Vegas," isn't going to suddenly redirect money into the parts of this city that have been bleeding out for decades.

What Tourism Revenue Actually Does Here

The casinos pull in over $500 million a year in gaming revenue. That number gets thrown around like proof we're thriving. But nobody mentions the structure underneath.

About 65-70% goes straight to the Province through OLG. The City of Niagara Falls gets around $25-30 million annually in hosting payments. The Region gets slightly less.

The city hosting the casinos receives roughly 5-6% of the gaming revenue generated here.

That money helps. Gets folded into general revenue. But it doesn't transform anything, and it definitely doesn't fix the systems buckling under 13 million annual visitors, soon to be 25 million if Ford gets his way.

Healthcare? Funded per capita by the province, not per tourist.

Education? Funded per student, not per tourism load.

Housing? Market-driven, and the city has almost no control.

None of these scale with visitor numbers. We absorb the impact. The province captures the profit.

Now, in theory, the province could use the additional tourism and gaming revenue Niagara generates to fund healthcare, education, and housing locally. However, nothing in Ontario’s system requires it to.

Once that money flows to Queen’s Park, it becomes general revenue, untied to place, visitor load, or impact, and is allocated by population formulas and political priority, not by where the strain is felt. The result is a city that generates enormous wealth while absorbing the costs, with no structural guarantee that the benefits ever return home.

We have lived that result for 29 years now.

The Evidence Is Everywhere

If the current revenue structure worked, we should be able to point at what it built.

Instead, Queen Street has cycled through how many failed revitalization attempts now? Bridge Street sits underdeveloped in the most strategic location imaginable. Roads and underground infrastructure keep deteriorating; you can feel it every time you drive here. ER wait times are among the worst in Ontario. Housing costs have collapsed any realistic path for people working tourism-sector jobs to actually live here.

Our downtown hubs, library, public transit and hospital have been the core of Niagara resident humour for my entire life. They have been nothing but comedic symbols of where our money goes in this city.

Even writing this sucks. I loved going to the public library when I was a kid. The arts and crafts, the Tonka games on the computer. Now if you even mention the building is the idea stopped by a joke about the demographic of people revolving about.

These aren't abstractions. You can walk them. You can live them. The community's pride in this city has eroded alongside the infrastructure itself.

This is what concentrated extraction looks like when it's disguised as a revolving tourism model.

The One Model That Actually Works

If I'm being honest, there is one institution that I have seen grow in my lifetime: the Niagara Parks.

The Parks have always been about more than flashy attractions. They've been a place of ecological education, preservation, and public stewardship. They maintain infrastructure. They plan long-term. They reinvest locally. They balance ecological necessity, educational purposes, and public accessibility in a way that actually works.

That steady, sustainable growth didn't happen because of private extraction. It happened because of mutual appreciation and collaborative understanding between public infrastructure, ecological preservation, and community value.

The Parks are proof that you can have tourism appeal and long-term stability when the structure prioritizes reinvestment over extraction.

And now, with Destination Niagara, we're being told that even this; the one thing that actually works, needs to be cracked open for private casinos, observation wheels, and entertainment complexes. Sold to us as our "last chance" to compete.

I understand the Parks themsleves are participitory in plans like these to certain extents. I really do. However, I question what places them in the position to do so.

Furthermore, what drives a person to pay money to sit on a giant wheel that will propel them farther away from the site they wish to see? On Clifton Hill, I understood it. But each one of the many hotels we have at the top of our escarpment offers the same type, of not better type of look-down view on the Falls. The Skylon Tower still exists (until it is turned into a rollercoaster-slot-machine-generative-AI-galactic-experience that will revitalize Murray Hill). If you are down by the Falls, you can walk for free to the very brink of the Niagara Falls itself. Quite literally 5ft or less away from the falling water. But we need a giant wheel.

Doug Ford's "Mini-Vegas" Structure Won't Fix This

I understand the need for investment appeal. I understand that Niagara needs economic productivity to function. But let's be clear about what Ford's vision actually offers.

Las Vegas taxes gaming at 6.75%, but they have massive local taxing authority: room taxes, convention fees, entertainment levies; money that stays local and gets reinvested locally.

Atlantic City has casino development authorities and earmarked funds. Macau captures about 35% of gross gaming revenue directly into public infrastructure. Niagara Falls does none of this.

Gaming revenue goes to the province. Municipal hosting payments are capped. Property tax gains get delayed 10-20 years through abatements and incentives. Healthcare and education funding don't scale with visitor numbers.

So even if Ford's plan brings in another $800 million to $1 billion in gaming revenue, the city might see an extra $25-30 million a year while the province pockets hundreds of millions.

Meanwhile, we'd absorb increased policing, EMS, fire costs. Accelerated infrastructure wear. Housing pressure from thousands of new low-wage workers. Increased addiction and mental health demand.

Tourism cities typically spend 30-50% of new revenue just keeping up with the damage.

The structure doesn't change. The extraction just accelerates.

What Actually Went Wrong Here

Queen Street didn't die because we lacked investment appeal. Bridge Street didn't stagnate because tourists didn't want to come here. Our infrastructure didn't crumble because Niagara Falls wasn't flashy enough.

These things happened because the wealth generated here was never structurally allowed to stay here.

This city was never starved of visitors or investment interest. It was starved of reinvestment. Starved of a model that actually loops the money back into the places that need it.

The community's lack of pride isn't a failure of character. It's the inevitable result of watching your city get used as an extraction hotspot for 29 years while the roads crumble and the hospitals overflow and the province tells you the solution is more of the same.

Take one good look at Centre street and the accompanying roads. They literally touch Clifton Hill and our tourist area and yet exist behind this invisible wall that barricades the crumbling infrastructure behind it all.

For fuck sakes all we have to be proud of is a half run-down soup and donut shop (shoutout Country Fresh, I love you) and Yanks pizza.

What We Actually Need

There's a real opportunity here that keeps getting ignored in favour of shiny renderings.

Real reinvestment in Bridge Street and Queen Street. Public transit infrastructure, like that electric tram, that actually serves residents and tourists. Housing that people working here can afford. Healthcare capacity that matches the actual demand we create. Cultural infrastructure that belongs to the community, not just people passing through.

This kind of development is slower. Less glamorous. Doesn't make for good press conferences.

But it works. It builds cities people stay in. Cities people are proud of.

I will note Bridge Street has a GO station and reconstruction plans in motion, but no cohesive vision connecting them. With this does the current setup funnels tourists straight to Clifton Hill on WEGO buses, completely bypassing Bridge Street and Queen Street.

Despite having the infrastructure pieces in place, nobody's connecting the dots to turn it into the walkable economic corridor between transit and downtown that it should be. Classic disconnected planning; money going to isolated projects instead of a vision that actually serves the community.

This Isn't Anti-Development. It's Pro-Structure.

I love this city. I love the Parks, not just as tourist attractions, but as proof that stewardship works. I love the people who've built their lives here. I love what Niagara Falls could be if the model actually served it.

What I can't accept is watching the same extraction cycle repeat itself while Doug Ford sells us another round of spectacle and pretends this time will be different.

If Destination Niagara moves forward without radical changes to revenue sharing, without a structure that actually keeps wealth local, Niagara Falls will carry the cost again while everyone else captures the reward.

I understand the need for economic development. I understand the appeal of investment and tourism drivers. But we don't need to become Vegas to survive.

We need a model that finally lets this city keep what it creates.

Niagara actually has a real chance to build something better. We sit on some of the most ecologically diverse and historically rich land in the country—land that could anchor education, climate literacy, cultural tourism, and year-round learning economies that generate real long-term value.

Instead of doubling down on casinos and hotel conglomerates that choke capital and extract more than they create, we could build a tourism model that reflects what it means to be Canadian: rooted in place, community-driven, and built on creation rather than depletion.

There is genuine prosperity in that. More stable, more future-proof, and finally grounded in the land we keep claiming to love.

I've been here my entire life; the same 29 years the casinos have been here. I've watched the infrastructure decline. I've felt the community's pride erode. I've seen what concentrated extraction disguised as tourism does to a place over time.

After three decades of living inside that model, Niagara Falls deserves more than Doug Ford's "bold vision."

It deserves a structure that actually works for the people who live here.

Peace and love from Niagara, for Niagara. 905/295 always.

Breakdown below.

Destination Niagara Strategy Breakdown

Here is Destination Niagara, broken down:

• Increase annual visitation from ~13 million to ~25 million visitors, positioning Niagara as a multi-day destination rather than a short stop.

• Generate an additional ~$3–4 billion annually in tourism-related economic activity for Ontario.

• Expand casino and gaming capacity, including the possibility of multiple new large-scale casinos or integrated resort casinos, ending Niagara’s current near-monopoly model.

• Attract billion-dollar private investments from global casino, hotel, and entertainment operators (Las Vegas–style integrated resorts).

• Develop new flagship attractions, including:

  • A major theme park (post-Marineland redevelopment scale)

  • A large observation wheel in or near Niagara Parks lands

  • Additional immersive attractions (theatre, experiential venues)

• Leverage Niagara Parks assets for revenue-generating partnerships, including redevelopment of:

  • Toronto Power Generating Station (boutique luxury hotel)

  • Ontario Power Generating Station (new attraction)

  • Park-adjacent lands for private attractions

• Increase average length of stay from ~1–2 nights to 3–4+ nights per visitor.

• Expand transportation infrastructure to support higher volume:

  • Widening the QEW

  • Twinning the Garden City Skyway

  • Expanded GO Train service

  • Upgrading Niagara District Airport for international flights

  • Introducing an electric riverfront transit line

• Reposition Niagara globally as a year-round entertainment, gaming, culinary, and cultural destination (a “Vegas of the North” without explicitly naming it).

• Create tens of thousands of jobs, primarily in construction, hospitality, gaming, and service sectors.

• Increase provincial revenues through gaming profits, HST, income tax, and corporate tax growth.

In Summary: More visitors, more casinos, more private capital, heavier use of public land, higher provincial revenue — with no explicit mechanisms guaranteeing proportional reinvestment into Niagara Falls’ healthcare, housing, or core public infrastructure.

I took this while installing an AC unit on top of the Skylon