A general view of the Ontario Science Centre, in Toronto, on May 5, 2023. The Ontario Science Centre at its current east Toronto location is permanently closed due to structural concerns with the roof, the provincial government said.Chris Young/The Canadian Press
At 4 p.m. on Friday, June 21, 2024, Doug Ford killed the Ontario Science Centre.
Toronto’s great Brutalist temple of childhood wonder, Raymond Moriyama’s hillside wonderland of wayward electrons and textured concrete, closed its doors to the public for perhaps the last time.
This closing is a choice. It is a deeply cynical political manoeuvre based on a bogus reading of an engineer’s report. The Ford government wanted to close the Science Centre, so it did.
It is a given that Doug Ford’s government wants to move the centre to the waterfront Ontario Place site – where demolition of buildings also began on Saturday, in an apparently calculated move after months of quiet.
These are the relevant facts. What the government put out Friday was spurious and shameless spin.
A government press release cited a study of the Science Centre building by engineers Rimkus Consulting, which found problems with a specific kind of precast concrete panel in the roofs. “Structural issues” “might emerge” this winter, and so the 55-year-old building would be shutting down.
A timeline of events in the Ontario Science Centre closure, announced Friday
In a briefing Friday, Infrastructure Ontario head Michael Lindsay said: “By Oct. 31, the roof would need to be remediated or replaced in order for people to be in the building. … Any remediation or replacement of the roof of the Ontario Science Centre would require the facility to be vacant.”
In fact, the report does not say that at all. Its recommendations are far more moderate: that all roofs be replaced over a 10-year period, and all “high risk” and “critical risk” areas be reinforced and replaced before Oct. 31. Those areas make up 5 per cent, 4 per cent and 1 per cent of the centre’s three buildings.
Why not address them one at a time, closing certain sections of the centre while leaving other parts open? Mr. Lindsay did not deny that this was possible, but said “the most efficient and cost-effective” approach would be to do all the work at once.
In short: There’s no reason. Civil servants closed it because the government wants it closed. Immediately, on a summer Friday while the Premier is on vacation.
But why?
On Sunday, a rally by the group Save Ontario’s Science Centre brought out Ontario NDP Leader Marit Stiles, Liberal Leader Bonnie Crombie, Toronto City Councillor Josh Matlow and MPPs from three opposition parties. There was plenty of fiery partisan rhetoric. But Mr. Matlow had the most trenchant question: “Ford could fix the roof and keep the Science Centre open for years to come,” he said. “So why is he doing this? Why is he destroying the things we value?”
One answer is ideology. The centre is a perfect distillation of progressive 1960s Ontario, an innovative public institution built to a bold modernist design. Conservatives like to destroy places like this: Think of the McLaughlin Planetarium, Ontario Place and now the Science Centre.
But Friday’s move is also part of a specific set of weird choices by the Premier. Mr. Ford, long obsessed with the Toronto waterfront, wants the Science Centre moved to Ontario Place. Its presence would help justify a huge parking garage, which also would serve the private Therme waterpark that would occupy the West Island of Ontario Place and destroy all of what is there now. All this is not speculation; Ontario’s Auditor-General found it was discussed with “government decision-makers” in 2023.
The move to Ontario Place will also be hugely expensive. Journalist Elsa Lam, writing in Canadian Architect, found it will cost $170-million more than repairing the existing Science Centre building, even without the large cost of the parking garage.
None of this agenda makes sense. None of it can be defended with truthful arguments.
Instead, Mr. Ford’s government is working to alienate Ontarians from a building that many of us know and love, so that protests will be muted and diluted. This is what they have done with Ontario Place, which has been shut down piecemeal and without warning.
Many people are upset about these places being wrecked. But you can’t say a teary goodbye if you don’t know when the doors are closing. You can’t chain yourself to the door when the door is already closed.
This bit of Etobicoke Machiavellianism could work. Or it could backfire, galvanizing opposition to the whole sordid enterprise. Such energy might not be enough to bring the centre back to life. But who knows? Science is one thing, and politics another – especially when you attack a place of wonder, joy and togetherness.
Editor’s note: An earlier version of this story incorrectly described the percentage of the Ontario Science Centre's roof deemed “high risk” and “critical risk.” This version has been corrected.