By Ray Rivers
June 18th, 2024
BURLINGTON, ON
OPINION
Wasting public funds is something for which all governments have been accused. And Doug Ford’s governance is hardly an exception. The current tangled mess is a consequence of the Premier’s preoccupation, which we can only guess at, with choosing a private international company to take over much of the land at Ontario Place. There, they will build a Spa, mostly, for the well heeled, as part of a 95 year unbreakable contract.
The buyers got the deal of 20th century and the public got the shaft…. For the next 99 years.
This whole affair is just so Deja Vu! Giving up a public roadway to a private foreign outfit, sealed with an unbreakable 99 year contract, was one of Mike Harris’ sad parting gifts to the people of Ontario. Building the 407 at public expense had been intended to ease traffic on the 401. But with high and ever increasing 407 toll rates the 407 has had a negligible effect on gridlock in the GTA. On the cusp of an election, a desperate Harris sold/leased the rights to operate the 407 for a measly three billion dollars just so he could claim he balanced his last budget. The buyers got the deal of 20th century and the public got the shaft…. For the next 99 years.
Premier Ford – determined to have beer sold in convenience stores and gas stations
Apparently, as part of the Ontario Place/Spa deal Ford had committed to build a multi-million dollar garage to accommodate the Spa’s customers. For a government running a $10 billion deficit, spending money to help a private sector Spa improve its bottom line was not going to escape criticism. After all, the Premier was already spilling tax dollars, what the Liberals figure will end up being a billion dollars, just so corner stores can get beer on their shelves a year earlier than planned, and before the next provincial election.
The Ontario Science Centre, a provincial body, had been deliberately let go into disrepair over the last half decade. And Mr. Ford must have figured that relocating it next to the Spa would be a win-win. The new garage for the relocated science could be oversized so the spa folks could use it as well – thereby killing two birds with one stone, so to speak.
Mr. Ford must have felt guilty about this shell game though, so his government paid consultants almost a million dollars to find an economic justification for the relocation. And the consultants did what they had been told, and this so-called business case justification is right full of holes. They played fast and loose with their numbers, under-estimating the relocation costs while over-estimating, nearly doubling, the costs of restoration of the science centre at the existing site as an alternative.
With his Cabinet lined up behind him Premier Ford announces that he will scrap the plans he had for developing some of the Greenbelt.
The Auditor General, the NDP opposition, the Globe and Mail and even architects have called Ford out on this slimy deal and wasting a million big ones on the fake study. But unlike his misadventure with the provincial Green Belt Doug Ford is not going to be deterred.
Ray Rivers, a Gazette Contributing Editor, writes regularly applying his more than 25 years as a federal bureaucrat to his thinking. Rivers was once a candidate for provincial office in Burlington. He was the founder of the Burlington citizen committee on sustainability at a time when climate warming was a hotly debated subject. Ray has a post graduate degree in economics that he earned at the University of Ottawa. Tweet @rayzrivers
Background links:
Ontario Place for All of US – Save the Science Centre – Beer Bamboozle –
Critics– Business Case – More Business Case – Architects – Ontario Place –
Ontario Place was neglected by successive governments for at least 30 years if not more.At least he is getting on with it!
I agree fully with these comments. The Ford government has wasted many tens of millions of dollars on litigation trying to justify his bone headed ideas through the courts on top of the comments.