The new Quaker Foods City Square in downtown Peterborough, splash pads, and the city’s trails and cycling are some of the projects the City of Peterborough supported using its share of gaming revenue from the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation (OLG) for hosting Shorelines Casino Peterborough.
On Friday (February 10), Peterborough mayor Jeff Leal met with representatives from OLG and Great Canadian Entertainment, which operates Shorelines Casino Peterborough, at Quaker Foods City Square to recognize how the funding is being used.
Every quarter, OLG provides payments to the City of Peterborough as a host community of a gaming site, based on a graduated scale of gaming revenue at the hosted site. The total payment for the 2022 fiscal year was $1,588,620.
Since Shorelines Casino Peterborough opened in October 2018, the City of Peterborough has received $8,687,987 from OLG.
The city used $677,909 from its OLG revenue to help pay for the construction of Quaker Foods City Square, a family-friendly community space that includes a refrigerated outdoor skating rink in the winter and water play features in the summer.
“By investing the OLG revenue in facilities such as the refrigerated outdoor skating rink for residents to enjoy throughout the winter and family-friendly splash pads for summertime fun, the city is enhancing the quality of life and well-being for the community,” Leal says in a media release issued by the city.
The city has also used the OLG revenue to support building new splash pads, to fund its contribution toward the construction of the new Canadian Canoe Museum, to support initiatives under the city’s Central Area Community Improvement Plan initiatives, and to expand the city’s trails and cycling network.
According to the media release, the city plans to use $1.8 million from the OLG revenue to invest in the city’s urban forest, including tree planting and maintaining the health of the community’s urban forest canopy, in 2023.
“OLG is proud to be a vital part of Peterborough for more than for years and we look forward to continuing to build on that support,” says OLG’s senior municipal relations manager Kathleen Devine. “And we appreciate the contribution of gaming site employees at Shorelines Casino Peterborough in making life in Peterborough that much richer.”
