P.E.I.'s government-owned golf courses 'absolutely not' for sale, minister says

Tourism Minister Matthew MacKay says P.E.I.'s government-owned golf courses are "absolutely not" for sale. 

MacKay said the golf courses are a huge part of the Island's tourism industry, employing 110 people, driving tourism, especially to eastern P.E.I., and are an economic driver for the provincial economy.

"I want to be crystal clear … the golf courses are not for sale and they will not be for sale," MacKay said in an interview with CBC News.

"It's not up for discussion at this point. We are not considering selling the courses at all. They are not for sale."

This is a significant shift in provincial government policy.

'Money pit'

The previous Liberal administration had tried numerous time to sell the provincially-owned courses, including the Links at Crowbush Cove, Brudenell River Golf Course and the Dundarave Golf Course.

In 2012, Tourism Minister Robert Henderson said the province wanted a private-sector entrepreneur to take the golf courses "to greater heights."

Renaud Brossard, interim Atlantic director with the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, described the golf courses as a "money pit." He said money is being taken out of Islander's pockets so that tourists can play golf. 

"For years, golf courses in the province have been losing money, costing taxpayers $4.6 million over the last five years," said Brossard.

"What we're suggesting for the government is actually to cut their losses, to find someone in the private sector that's willing to operate it and turn it around or if that's not possible to close them altogether."

'Significant loss due to COVID'

MacKay admits golf courses have been and continue to lose money.

In this year's budget, the province plans to spend $4.1 million on golf courses, about $2.5 million of that in salaries.

Provincially-owned golf courses lost more than $1.4 million last year. 

"This year was a significant loss due to COVID," said MacKay.

"Our tourism numbers were down significantly and secondly we didn't compete against the private courses so we didn't want to take any business away from the private courses."

The province was able to sell off one of its provincially-owned golf courses, Mill River Golf Course.

'Government was losing $970,000 a year'

Don McDougall, the owner of Mill River Resort, which includes the Mill River Golf Course, said the province should consider selling the other three government-owned golf courses.

More than $9 million was pumped into Mill River Resort since it sold in 2017, $6 million from the provincial government and $3 million from McDougall.

The vast majority of that money was to overhaul the resort. 

"Particularly in these times when governments have so many diverse demands … it's hard to see how the focus and the resources that are needed can be properly devoted to developments such as a golf course," said McDougall, adding he has no interest in purchasing any of the other Island golf courses. 

McDougall said Mill River has been a success story, creating a four star, four season destination resort which is no longer costing taxpayers money.  

"In our case, the government was losing $970,000 a year when we took it over. Now, with property taxes and all the other things that we're doing they're probably positive a half a million dollars a year. That's a fairly big payback for the taxpayer."   

Get 'to a break-even point'

MacKay said he's confident they can get the provincially-owned golf courses to break even. He said they were projecting losses of $155,000 before COVID-19 hit, closing P.E.I.'s borders to everybody outside of Atlantic Canada and devastating the Island's tourism industry.

"That's our goal, to get these courses to a break-even point and we're quite confident we can do so," said MacKay.

"We need to be creative, at the end of the day we can't compete with the private sector, we have high-end courses, look at Crowbush, people from all over the world come to Crowbush. We need to keep it as a high-end course … and watch our spending and get to a break-even point which I am quite confident we can." 

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