Nova Scotia will release shelved VLT impact study after refusing a year earlier

<p>HALIFAX – The Nova Scotia government says it will release a draft report on the social and economic impacts of gambling that was shelved about 18 months ago.</p> <p>The government refused to make the document public a year ago after an access-to-information request, saying it wasn’t being released because of problems with its research methods.</p> <p>The Canadian Press and an anti-gambling group called Game Over VLTs appealed to a review officer in a bid to get the report released by the Labour Department.</p> <p>Dulcie McCallum later recommended the release of the full draft report.</p> <p>The department sent a letter Friday saying that it doesn’t agree with McCallum, but will still release the report with its comments outlining its concerns.</p> <p>The letter from the department’s deputy minister said the full draft report will be provided within 30 days.</p> <p>McCallum said the decision to release the document is a useful precedent because it makes clear the province can’t refuse to release a record because it thinks the record has flaws.</p> <p>”In my report, I found that Nova Scotians are pretty bright people and they can figure out whether something is a bit skewed or seek more information to fully understand something,” she said in an interview.</p> <p>McCallum also said she’s pleased the province has acknowledged that there is a public interest in the topic of VLTs and the gambling report. </p> <p>However, she said the record could have come much sooner.</p> <p>”This could have been not a bad decision at the outset when the applicants first made a request for access to the record,” she said.</p> <p>The final draft of the gambling report was submitted by a consultant in September 2009, a couple of months before his contract was terminated under the direction of the province’s NDP government.</p> <p>It was expected to delve into the costs to society of gambling addiction tied to VLTs.</p> <p>The consultant who wrote the report, Mark Anielski, has rejected criticisms of his methods, saying he suspects the study was killed because it focused on social problems linked to the use of VLTs and casino slot machines.</p> <p>The province has said about $99.5 million of its $146 million in gambling revenues in 2009-10 came from VLTs.</p>