Keep Ontario Place as a public space

Ontario Place is, without question, a Toronto landmark that could be mightily improved. But it should remain public parkland.

Thestar.com
Dec. 2, 2022

In Toronto, our world already contains quite enough platinum seats and private boxes, too much noise and haste, too little nature.

So any plan proposing more such economically gated amenities -- especially on public land -- and aspiring to convert parkland to glass and steel deserves to be looked at with raised eyebrows.

The proposal to construct a large private spa complex as part of the redevelopment of Ontario Place has rightly received widespread criticism.

Last week, the Ontario government announced it had submitted a revised development application to the City of Toronto to create what it describes as “a world-class, year-round destination” on the 155-acre site of the waterfront park that was first opened in 1971 and mothballed 10 years ago.

The original proposal announced last year included a $350-million recreational facility on Ontario Place’s west island to be built by Therme Group, a European “well-being resorts” company.

That glass edifice would have dominated the 22-acre island and was slammed by critics who objected to the province leasing valuable public land on the waterfront to a for-profit company.

The revised proposal, which imagines breaking ground on the project in 2024 and opening in 2026, promises a reduced footprint for the complex and more public space around it.

But that concession only marginally addresses some fundamental philosophical problems with a plan ardently supported by Premier Doug Ford.

Critics -- who call the proposal “vandalism of Ontario Place” -- have objected both to the provision of public land to a commercial franchise, and to the nature of a towering glass-walled complex with indoor and outdoor pools, saunas, water slides, botanical gardens and “well-being therapies” and to the daily adult entry fee of at least $40.

They make good points on all grounds.

Ontario Place opened as a 96-acre cultural and leisure complex on three purpose-built islands in Lake Ontario, just off the CNE grounds.

It was described on opening as “a fun place” for both young and old. For generations, as the Star’s Edward Keenan so nicely recalled this week in his chronicling of a stroll among the ruins, that’s what it was.

Keenan said Ontario Place remains a great urban park that requires some love and respect.

The redevelopment and reintegration of Ontario Place into the city’s life and imagination is to be applauded. But it should remain a park -- as it happens, a time-tested well-being therapy -- open and accessible to all.

Unfortunately, the current proposal rather aptly embodies the cultural ethos of Ford and his government -- at the same time, faintly tacky and aspiringly elitist.

It is not the first time the premier has trained his Ford-Fest sensibilities on Toronto’s waterfront.

During his late brother Rob’s ill-starred mayoralty, Doug Ford, then a city councillor, proposed a Disney-like monorail, boat-in five-star waterfront hotel, and giant Ferris wheel a la the London Eye.

That’s his bent. Casinos, malls, Ferris wheels. Size and glass and glitz.

The current proposal could use some sober third thought to eliminate what seems to be a clanging dissonance with such a prized waterfront site and the city’s sense of itself and what it wants to be.

Ontario Place is, without question, a Toronto landmark that could be mightily improved.

But it should remain public parkland. Emphasis on both words.