So ... over the weekend my brother RJ and I went out to see some mma fights, including the UFC middeweight championship. We went to a local bar and for most of the fight, it was pretty packed. As I've stated before, mixed martial arts and the UFC in particular is extremely popular and particularly popular in Ontario. Fights like this one, shown only on pay per view, are purchased more in this province than almost any other place on earth.
But this is not a post about professional fighting, well not entirely. It's really a post about a lack lustre government with no sense of initiative, imagination or a sense of care about it's constituents.
Dalton McGinty's gov't has often used mma's reputation for brutality and violence as one of the principle reasons why they will not sanction it here. Never mind that Ontario sanctions boxing, hockey, football and full contact martial arts tournaments ... mma is the big bad barbaric blood sport that is just too much for us poor unwashed masses to deal with ... isn't it nice that this gov't is looking out for us?
Yeh, this would be the gov't that gave themselves 24,000 dollar raises, pay 25,000 to have their speeches written, squandered millions of dollars (our dollars) on eHealth, and permitted millions of dollars to be stolen by lottery ticket vendors on their watch ...
And that brings me to the crux of this rant. Mixed martial arts tournaments are too immoral for us to view. But gambling is good for us. Gambling is family friendly, ethics-teaching, discipline reinforcing behaviour ... This gov't is heavily invested in gambling. Lottery tickets, off track gambling, casinos, horse racing, slot machines at horse tracks ... But apparently not invested enough. Because now, as if don't have enough access to gambling, the Ontario gov't is getting into the business of online gambling.
Online gambling. Yeh, there's no possibility of that creating issues with people. It's one thing that people have to go to a gas station to buy a lottery ticket or to the race track or to a casino where you can check ID's and scrutinize a credit card and maybe have rules against people playing for 20 hrs straight ...
I have nothing against gambling. I don't really indulge myself but I view it as I view drinking alcohol; it's a choice but it's a choice for adults. I think booze is over regulated here but I also acknowledge that certain controls should be put in place, it's a potentially addictive pleasure and can affect your health. We know gambling can be potentially addictive. And we know it can have long and lasting impacts on people and their families. Having said that, I have no issue with legalized gambling. But if a gov't is involved in it, shouldn't they have maximum concerns about any potential pitfalls?
Their justification for all this: Well all that over spending and mis-spending has put them .. or I should say us ... in quite the economic bind. And they know online gambling will inject hundreds of millions of dollars into the public coffers ... to replace millions of dollars lost to illegal handling of lottery tickets. Gosh, how do you spell irony?
So the UFC is a huge rich organization, legal in several other Canadian provinces that wants to come to Ontario. There is no doubt that sanctioned mma fights will infuse millions into the economy, including from taxes. But watching trained professional athletes beat each other up is a blood sport too rich for our blood; it's too barbaric and too psychologically disturbing.
But online gambling, which will surely have young people all over the province glued to their computers at all hours, draining their credit cards, opening themselves up to all kinds of computer fraud .. now that is good clean moral fun.
Maybe this is it: As popular as the UFC is, we probably won't have a major fight here more than once year and all the other smaller promotions just won't have the economic stamina .. whereas online, hell you can be online all the time, just pumping that money into the system. And hell, people may go into debt, they may develop an addiction, they may neglect their families and their jobs but you know what .. there won't be any blood
No blood in Ontario? You bet
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