A second court case has been dismissed that sought to block the construction of a mega-spa at Toronto’s Ontario Place—a beloved 1971 Modernist landscape designed by the Canadian landscape architect Michael Hough.
On 26 July, the Ontario Superior Court of Justice rejected a legal challenge brought by Ontario Place Protectors (OPP), a grassroots organisation arguing that the Rebuilding Ontario Place Act is unconstitutional and amounts to a “breach of public trust”. The controversial law, which passed in December 2023, had paved the way for the spa by overriding Ontario Place’s protections as a heritage site and exempting it from environmental assessment. Last month, the same court dismissed the non-profit organisation Ontario Place for All’s request for an environmental assessment. OPP called the latest decision “surprising and disturbing”.
In a statement, OPP’s lawyer Eric Gillespie pointed to a dangerous legal precedent set by this decision. “People may not be aware of how far this legislation has gone and what it means for the future,” he wrote. “The overarching issue is this: If you can essentially eliminate all laws for Ontario Place, there is now nothing preventing the government from doing this for anything, including new expressways, airports, eliminating the Greenbelt or any other government project. One would think almost every resident of Ontario should be very concerned about this prospect.”
In the past several years, various groups and political factions have been battling over what to do—and what not to do—with Ontario Place. The trouble began in 2018, when then-newly elected Ontario Premier Doug Ford began collecting proposals for the redevelopment of Ontario Place without any public input or regard for the heritage site’s preservation.
In 2022, plans for a mega-spa were revealed, as was the existence of a 95-year lease agreement between the provincial government and Therme, an Austrian wellness company that would build the spa. Taxpayers were expected to foot the bill of an estimated C$650m ($481m) for site servicing and a new underground parking garage, turning the future of Ontario Place into a hot political issue in Canada’s largest city. Later, in what was seen as an effort to legitimise the price of the parking garage, the Ford government made plans to move the Ontario Science Centre to Ontario Place—a decision that has also caused uproar.
The Ontario Science Centre, which was permanently and abruptly closed on 21 June Photo: David Ceballos via Wikimedia Commons
The parking garage, in particular, has come under increased scrutiny recently. After Toronto saw some of its heaviest rains and most severe flooding in over a decade on 16 July, Ford suggested that perhaps the new parking structure should be above ground instead. Adding insult to injury, the projected price of the parking garage skyrocketed to a possible C$800m ($587m).
The July deluge also brought back to light the case of moving the Ontario Science Centre. On 21 June, the provincial government permanently and abruptly closed the science centre’s landmark Raymond Moriyama-designed Brutalist building about 15km northeast of Ontario Place, citing structural instability and danger of a roof collapse. At the time, the architecture historian Elsa Lam pointed to a number of discrepancies in the official report, claiming that the Ford government had misrepresented its own findings in order to shutter its current home, making a move appear inevitable. In the aftermath of the heavy rains less than a month later, Lam and others could not help but notice that the science centre’s roof had been unscathed—even as the province’s report specifically mentioned a likely collapse in the event of “significant snow or rain loading”.
The municipal government of Toronto had explored a possible takeover of Moriyama’s building from the provincial government, but the project was deemed too expensive earlier this month. Even before that decision had been made, Geoffrey Hinton—the “godfather” of artificial intelligence—reportedly pledged to give $1m to fix the roof and save the building, although there have been no updates since then.
It now appears that nothing short of a corruption scandal will stand in the way of the Ford government’s plans for Ontario Place. A much-anticipated report from Ontario’s auditor general on the Therme mega-spa is still forthcoming, but last year’s report on the science centre’s relocation found many irregularities yet failed to stop it from moving forward.