Glover: Ford’s plans for a half-sized Science Centre at Ontario Place are half-baked

QUEEN’S PARK – NDP MPP Chris Glover (Spadina—Fort York), whose riding includes Ontario Place, issued the following statement after Infrastructure Ontario’s Request for Proposals reveals the new Ontario Science Centre will be about half the size of the attraction’s current building, which is on the City’s Heritage Register:

“Not only will Ford’s new Science Centre be half the size of the current one, he’s refusing to tell Ontarians how much his plan to demolish the existing heritage landmark and build a new, diminished one, will cost. It’s a half-baked plan.

Ford’s Conservatives claim that their plan—to demolish the existing architecturally-significant building and build a brand new facility alongside a massive parking lot for Ford’s private luxury spa—is cheaper. But they refuse to provide any numbers, facts, or business cases to support this.

In an age where we want our children to develop a love of science to understand the world and to participate fully in the economy of the future, Ford is wasting our tax dollars to provide diminished opportunities for young people to learn about science.

This whole back-of-the-napkin scheme is to distract from the fact that Ford’s Conservatives are subsidizing a private luxury megaspa and a massive parking lot on a public park and charging taxpayers $650 million to do so.”