§ Mr. A. LewisWith your permission, Mr. Speaker, and that of the House, I beg leave to present a Petition to this honourable House on behalf of those members of the public who are interested in the sport of greyhound racing. I have no vested interest in this sport, but I want to draw the attention of the House to the very unfair and discriminatory position that now pertains with regard to greyhound racing.
The position is that all bets that are placed upon totalisators at greyhound 178 racing tracks carry an 11 per cent. tax, but no such tax is levied on the same sort of totalisators at horse tracks throughout the country. In addition, the bookmakers at greyhound stadiums where these totalisators are operated have also a very heavy licence fee to pay, which is not, again, paid by the very same bookmakers who go to horse race track meetings.
There are some 110,000 signatures to this Petition, and your Petitioners request that the 11 per cent. tax on bets placed through the greyhound totalisators, and the licence duty on bookmakers at greyhound stadiums where such totalisators are operated, should be removed, and that greyhound racing should, therefore, be placed upon the same basis as all the other betting sports so far as taxation is concerned.
Wherefore, your Petitioners pray that greyhound racing shall have removed from it the present discriminatory tax of 11 per cent. now imposed upon all bets made through totalisators upon greyhound racecourses, and that they further pray that greyhound racing shall be placed on the same basis as other sports involving betting which have no similar tax or bookmakers' charges levied upon them.And your Petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray.
§ To lie upon the Table.