by PATRICK LEJTENYI

Despite the promises of jobs, monorails and world-class facilities, Loto-Québec is still finding the proposed $1.1-billion Peel Basin casino/entertainment complex a hard sell. Last week, a coalition of opponents, made up mainly of community groups and churches from Pointe St-Charles and the West Island, denounced the project, saying it would create more problems in an already troubled neighbourhood. But it also included strong protests from members of Montreal’s Chinese population, who say that a significant portion of their community is at risk if a new casino were to open within walking distance of Chinatown.

“First of all, we want any new casino to be as far away as possible from vulnerable people,” says May Chiu, executive director of Chinese Family Services of Greater Montreal. According to a 1996 study of problem gambling among Chinese communities around the world, says Chiu, addiction rates were maybe one per cent higher than the population at large. But specific subgroups within the Chinese community showed much higher rates of gambling addiction, namely restaurant workers and seniors.

“Just in Chinatown alone, there are over 50 restaurants, and none of those workers have anywhere to go at 3 or 4 a.m. when they get off work, except the casino,” she says. “And travel agencies organize bus tours for Chinese seniors to the casino where they can play things like mah jongg.”

Local gambling critic Sol Boxenbaum, CEO of Viva Consulting, however, says the problem runs deeper because of self-imposed isolation within the Chinese community. “Chinese culture is very different in that they don’t go outside the community looking for help,” he says. “Instead, the women take on the responsibility for treating the addiction problem.”

Boxenbaum says he answers frequent calls from people seeking help for gambling addiction, but rarely are they Chinese. “There’s very little identification of the problem in the Chinese community,” he says.

Another problem is that very few problem-gambling services are offered specifically to the Chinese community in Montreal. The Pavilion Foster, a Montreal addiction treatment centre, has one Chinese speaker for an estimated population of 40,000 Chinese in the city. But, Chiu says, the Chinese community does face serious problems surrounding gambling, like family break-ups, debt, violence and suicide. Her organization had some services but had to cut them when their funding dried up two years ago. The fear is, if the new casino is more easily accessible, the problems will only multiply.

No, they won’t, says Loto-Québec. Benoît Gignac, the coordinator of the Peel Basin project office, says discussing things like crime is an example of “some people wanting to re-open the debate on gaming in Quebec.” Security and access to the complex will be as tight, or tighter, than it was at its present location on Île Notre-Dame. And, he says, as the proposed site is at present an industrial zone, surrounded by highways and train tracks, it’s not that much easier to get to than the previous site.

Nevertheless, Chiu isn’t holding back. Three years ago, after a long struggle, the Chinatown mini-casino plan was nixed. She vows to keep up her opposition to the casino’s new location in the form of petitions, pressure actions and a demonstration planned in Pointe St-Charles in November.