Maybe the most obnoxious thing about MGM’s continued attempts to bring a casino gambling complex “Integrated Resort” to Toronto is that they don’t even have the decency to look us in the eye.
Like Lyle Lanley rolling into Springfield with a zippy jingle about monorails and a business plan amounting to stick figures making off with cartoon rucksacks of money, MGM is especially egregious in treating thinking, sentient adult Torontonians as if they were children. Their cartoon mockups of the proposed $3 to $4 billion complex prefigure the renovated CNE midway (complete with Ferris wheel), the curvy glass of a hyper-modern hotel and the sunny ¾ aerial view of the lakeshore, all rendered in luminous watercolours evoking the covers of countless Robert Munsch volumes.
Despite seeming to make a point of not calling their casino a casino, and focusing on spec-paintings of Ferris wheels rather than the conspicuous concrete slabs that dot the would-be resort, MGM pretends to be about transparency. This weekend, they’re hosting an open-door “career showcase,” where the public can learn about the 10,000 jobs MGM claims to be bringing to Toronto, while rubbing shoulders with celebrity chef Mark McEwan and Bellagio COO Randy Morton – a “George Brown College Graduate,” the notice stresses, just like you!
There’s also MGM Toronto’s Facebook page, created “both to keep you informed regarding our vision for an Integrated Resort in Toronto and to hear from you.” It shares information about the proposed complex via oversimplified infographics – one shows outlines of a man and woman dancing as a way of signifying the entertainment value of an “integrated resort” – and links to pro-casino puff pieces in the daily press (though they’re at least clever enough not to repost out-and-out advertorial).
It also has its own “Rules Of Engagement,” a loose code of conduct for anyone engaged with their Facebook page, which gives whoever runs the page to right to moderate comments for usual red-flag stuff like name-calling and spam. One of the foundational principles of MGM Cadillac Fairview’s Facebook is “Be Transparent and Honest: Post under your own name and do not falsely impersonate others.” But anyone whose ever seen a Las Vegas stage magician disappear a dove or some giddy volunteer from a bridal shower party knows that any overstated, nothing-up-my-sleeve show of openness is usually an act of subtle misdirection.
Recently, NOW reader Christopher Butcher brought to our attention certain attempts to subtly undermine MGM’s principles of transparency and honesty – not on the part of the vehement anti-Casino movement (one which Butcher, and NOW, identify with) but by the casino-types themselves. It’s called “astroturfing.” Named after the synthetic grass substitute, the practice refers to a sort of sly, underhanded public relations or social media campaign that mobilizes personal Facebook or other social media accounts to push a certain predetermined agenda, all while appearing to stem from a disinterested participant.
An astroturfer may plant a trumped-up review of a product on a site like Amazon, in an attempt to promote the product in a way that doesn’t scan as out-and-out advertising to anyone reading. Or to get back to the whole Vegas magician/misdirection analogy, astroturfers are like the plants in the magic show audience, volunteering for a vanishing act they’re in on the whole time.
It’s tricky to prove, definitively, but MGM Toronto’s Facebook page seems to be laying down its own astroturf foundations. One frequent poster, a Toronto woman named Debbie K. Bush, seems especially suspect. She posts frequently, and responds to measured criticism about the economic validity of MGM’s proposed resort with tailored PR-speak like, “The development of an Integrated Resort and all of its offerings (cirque du’ soliel, restaurants and night clubs) will attract new visitors to Toronto. More tourists = more revenue to the city and a guaranteed spill over into the local economy” and “Amazing!! Positioning the CNE along the water is perfect. Anyone who has walked the concrete midway on a hot summers day knows how terribly hot it gets,” the kind of stuff that’s made other posters on the page openly inquire if she works for MGM.
Debbie K. Bush does not work for MGM. At least not directly. According to her LinkedIn profile, she’s a VP at A. Kepinski & Associates in Toronto, listing her expertise as “Gambling & Casinos.” But some hard reporting (read: like four Google searches and a phone call) reveals a trail of breadcrumbs connecting Bush to MGM’s Canadian interests. For one, A. Kepinski & Associates (and its namesake, Andrezj Kepinski, who provides consultancy services to gaming industry endeavours in Ontario) have been openly connected with several gambling-related initiatives in the province, including a proposed privatized $65-million entertainment complex in Niagara Falls, which was shot down by their city council in July 2009. Kepinski has also been tied to interests at Georgian Downs in Barrie and Flamboro Downs in Hamilton.
Bush’s LinkedIn also points to the under-construction website for Prestantia Management Group Limited, a business consultancy group responsible for a “$1.8 billion mega-resort” in Macau. (Also the “i” in the Prestantia logo is dotted with a spade, so.) Prestantia’s President & COO is a guy named Steve Wolstenholme, whose own LinkedIn lays out his aim to “[d]evelop strategic partnerships to leverage changing gaming environment [sic] and provide a value proposition specifically but not solely in Ontario, Canada.” Wolstenholme is also – wait for it – MGM’s point person for Canadian development. Knowing this, it’s a little hard to swallow the idea that Debbie K. Bush is adhering to MGM Toronto’s own stated Facebook standards of honesty and transparency.
When we reached her at her office, Bush roundly denied that she was being actively leaned on to post on MGM Toronto’s Facebook page. Though she stated that she supported MGM’s endeavours in Toronto, and admitted her involvement with Prestantia, she claimed she was not attempting to influence public opinion from her own private Facebook account. “No,” she said, when asked point-blank if she was astroturfing. “Absolutely not.”
Beyond violating MGM’s own mock-values for open dialogue, astroturfing’s not a crime, at least while the ‘turfer’s not receiving direct reimbursement for their sneaky promotion. But it’s wildly disingenuous. And given Bush’s admitted connections to various interests with ties to gambling in Ontario, her claim that she’s just expressing her own indifferent enthusiasm for a gambling resort complex on the CNE grounds reeks of self-interest. It’s naïve not to believe that MGM is stacking development dialogue in their favour. It just remains baffling – and frankly a bit insulting – that they wouldn’t bother shuffling an obviously marked card like Debbie K. Bush out of the deck.
With files from Christopher Butcher.
Update (3/13/1:55 pm): Debbie K. Bush has ‘fessed to her affiliation with MGM, via the MGM Toronto Facebook page, naturally.
