The Agenda with Steve Paikin (Audio) - Has Doug Ford Protected Iconic Ontario Places?

Episode Date: February 13, 2025

Doug Ford says he wants to protect Ontario. When it comes to iconic sites like Ontario Place and the Science Centre, has he protected Ontarians' interests? To discuss, we're joined by Greg Brady, Cynthia Wilkey, Menon Dwarka, and Michael Taube.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Ontario Place, the Science Centre, Science North. These iconic sites have attractive visitors from all over the world and help to shape the province's identity. But in an election where Doug Ford has made the case that only he can protect Ontario from Donald Trump's tariffs, how effective has he been at protecting our own crown jewels? Let's ask. Menendwarca, president of MPD Culture Consultants. Cynthia Wilkie, founding member and former co-chair of Ontario Place for All.

Greg Brady, host of Toronto Today on 640 Toronto. That's an AM radio station, but of course you can get it everywhere now. And Michael Tobe, columnist at the National Post, Troy Media and Looney Politics, and it's great to have you all around our table today for a timely discussion about the state of affairs here in our beloved province.

Let's start with you, Cindy, if I can. I don't know if you heard, they're planning to build a spa where Ontario Place is. What do you think of that idea? Not much, as you know. So I think we suddenly find ourselves facing an existential crisis, both in terms of our economy and our sovereignty, but also our cultural identity.

And Ontario Place is part of that identity, as is the Science Centre, as are many other institutions and programs that we have that are dear to our hearts. But I feel that this government is actually eroding the legacy from John Robarts and Bill Davis to create and nurture our identity and institutions that make us distinct and bring us together as Ontarians. It was Premier John Robarts who made the decision to build Ontario Place because he thought kids ought to have a place to go in the summer in the city and Bill Davis opened it I think 1971 or two or something like that. 1971 and it was more than a place to play. He actually talked about how it was a place to reflect on who we are as

Ontarians and to think about what we have created and what we can bring in the future together. You're on the radio every day talking to people. What's their reaction to this? I think two things. I think there's very much... It's risky to have a wait-and-see approach to Ontario Place. I absolutely have phenomenal memories of going to Ontario Place. A London kid come up on a bus on a field trip and to see it in the Cinesphere and the IMAX and then even getting to go to concerts. They're

rotating stage, Steve, in the 80s. That was the big thing and then they built Molson Amphitheater. It's now Bud's Stage. I love being down there but it a lot of the a lot of the bones of Ontario Place needed an overhaul and I think there are a lot of provincial governments and a lot of a lot of Toronto City Councils that missed a tremendous opportunity. I'm hoping it can be a lot of provincial governments and a lot of Toronto City Councils that missed a tremendous opportunity. I'm hoping it can be a balance of public and private. I think there's been economic opportunity, jobs to be created, and we've just missed out on this for decades.

But it's tough to take a wait and see approach because once it's built, it's built. So I hope it is that private-public mix. Mannon, in your view, what makes the connection between a place like Ontario Place and the people of Ontario? What makes that connection? Well, I think the primary connection is having the people of Ontario actually inhabit that space and be themselves and actually express their intersectionalities amongst each other. Of course, they have not been much over the last 15 years or so. True, but I think of a certain vintage, we carried the memory of Ontario Place deeply within us.

I mean, what I think is interesting here about the way we're moving ahead is that I was not aware that we were in a spa shortage. That we had a spa crisis on our hands. I think it's interesting we have two middle-aged candidates running for premier, both women, who have not said that we needed more spas in Ontario. Bromian style. Yes.

They have not said that. They have not sounded the alarm that we needed more spas. But what we do need is common third spaces, especially after the pandemic. We need places where we can actually express, combine and realize culture together. And we can't do that if we have to pay an entry fee to be sweating in a steam room.

Michael, what's your view on this? Look, as the most defined conservative on the panel, obviously I recognize and we recognize people who are like-minded that free markets, private enterprise, individual rights and freedoms and things are obviously of grand importance to us, but we have never ignored as conservatives historical and cultural institutions at all. The conservatives created Ontario Place. That's right. They created Ontario Place, and the Ontario Science Centre was, as I recall, under the progressive conservative

government as well. It was a Robarts government centennial year project. Exactly. And we have always protected them, no matter what type of conservators been in power, whether it be John Robarts or Bill Davis or Mike Harris or Doug Ford, the current premier. Now naturally, I look at things a little bit differently

in the sense that the Ontario Science Centre will be moved, it appears, by at least 2028 or thereabouts, give or take. Ontario Place will obviously have a different definition. But I don't have a big issue, as I wrote about in a national post column, with multi-use buildings and facilities, as long as certain things are maintained and protected. Conservatives believe in protecting those institutions. We don't necessarily go out and go rah rah

and cheer cheer for them, but we have never believed in demolishing things. Doug Ford believes in two things, typically as a premier. He wants to fix deficiencies and inefficiencies. And if he sees them in place in those two aspects, he's going to look at them. He may not love what he's going to come up with. We'll talk more about it as time goes along.

Well, let me do that right now. Because, okay, when you talk about will not love it, Ontario's Auditor General looked into all of this, as you know, released a report saying that the development process at Ontario Place was, in the AG's words, not adequately fair, transparent, or accountable. Does that change your view at all about what you just said?

No, not necessarily. I mean, obviously, it's difficult for people to move forward. I've always believed that change is good, and I believe that facilities need to be used properly. As Greg said, I mean, you want to have a balance of public and private in Ontario Place. I'm perfectly fine with that.

I may favor the private, but I know what the public obviously wants. It's a question of what goes in and how it works. You know, Therna, the Austrian company, will obviously have its own interests. They'll have a 95 year lease. If it goes through, they will obviously want to attract certain customers. They will obviously need parking in various facilities. They'll need a modern structure, but there is no reason the Ontario place cannot be still used for purposes that benefit the general public.

And I see nothing that says otherwise. Cindy, come on in. Whoa. Well, first of all, let's talk about demolition. In order to build that spa, the Ontario government has demolished the West Island. The West Island is part of what is integral to the cultural heritage aspect, or beauty of Ontario Place.

The landscape architecture of Ontario Place, along with the integrated with the buildings and the engineering is internationally recognized as a rare example of mid-century futuristic design. That's why it is on the World Monument Fund's 2020 watch list for endangered places, endangered cultural assets. And so in order to build a spot that landscape was entirely leveled. There's nothing there now but dirt. That's the Michaelhoff landscape celebrated everywhere. How is that preservation? How is that consistent with

conservative principles? And then look at what we've got in Ontario Place. It's dominated by two foreign businesses, what used to be something that celebrated Ontario, that invited Ontarians in to an accessible place where we could all play together and experience Ontario culture. We now have Live Nation, American multinational, and we have an Austrian spa that's replaced a native landscape with palm trees and a tropical landscape. So where's the Ontario?

Okay, let me pick up on that one, Mannon. Does the fact that there are more private interests going to be there in the future, and then doubly so international slash foreign private interests, trouble you? Not necessarily. But I don't see the values of Ontario, or even the demographics represented in the GTA, in any way expressed in the choice of what the land use is going to be,

or how it's actually going to be reflective of the culture here. It's just, I hate to say it, because people probably think, oh, someone like me would go around saying this all the time. But it's just another example of colonialism. We just import some international fund. We just slap on our blue hat that says we're not for sale.

But in fact, apparently, we are for sale, right? I'd like us to actually think, anyone can come into the pool, but let's celebrate and talk about this uniquely precious group of people that are actually expressing the most defined form of democracy in North America right now. We should be valuing that. Greg, your view on that?

Well, I think, again, there's a balancing act. I think we had, did we not have the Toronto Blue Jays owned by a European brewery at some point in time? And I don't think people cared. In fact, that was important land at a point in time where they built Sky Dome. Right next door is the Ripley's Aquarium. Do families care if it's employing Torontonians and it's giving people a place to go to take their kids to learn about fish and birds and the like. Probably more fish than birds because it's an aquarium, but you get my point. And I'd even point out, Live Nation and that area has created a ton of jobs down there.

They're going to make it a 12-month-a-year expansion. I just think, again, this has been all leading up to, I don't love everything about the Ford deal and I don't love everything about the tax dollars involved, but I don't know the Austrian spot. If this was Great Wolf Lodge and they were just putting another Great Wolf Lodge in, to your point, there's not a spa shortage, but in the downtown core, you could make the case there is. And that's, no, there's not, is there a spot downtown that would be as big as this?

So, you know, if we were calling it something else, I think, and let's defend the Austrian Canadians. I've had a really rough ride here. You've had a really tough time with, you know, Austrian's almost a swear word now in Ontario politics. Who's writing your material today? You are really funny today. I'm impressed, I'm impressed.

I'm impressed. Well, the opposition leaders have, of course, made a lot of hay about this. And let's hear from them. And then we'll come back and chat. Sheldon, if you would, the clip. To me, this whole moving the Science Centre was clearly just the premier's way

of padding the THERMA project. And so that is not good planning. It's not fair to the people of Ontario, but this is what we see again and again with this government. From the snap closure of the Ontario Science Centre to the selling off of Ontario Place to the Green Belt giveaway, Ford has consistently put friends first and the people of Ontario last. Well I call BS on it. I mean the government said oh hey we came up with a business case on why we should move the Ontario Science Centre to Ontario Place after they'd already made the decision to do that. So over and over again the government has misled the people of Ontario about Ontario Science Centre and

Ontario Place. Marge Stiles, Bonnie Crombie, Mike Schreiner in that order. Okay, Michael, do you think these controversies at the Science Centre and at Ontario Place have chipped away at Doug Ford's popularity? No, and the numbers actually show it. You know, a recent Post Media Leger poll shows that he's actually going up in popularity week by week. It's quite the opposite.

In spite of this or because of this? It's not actually related to it, because a lot of these things are not top of mind. What is top of mind as of right now is Donald Trump's threat of terrorists. That is what's top of mind. That is what he's primarily made this election about. It's interesting to me, and these are old sparring partners,

all of the political leaders, only Mr. Ford's not, although I know him. It's interesting to me, and these are old sparring partners, all of the political leaders, only Mr. Ford's not, although I know him. It's interesting to me, they always talk about snap. I wrote about this move in 2023. The switch only occurred in 2024. I've worked in politics, that's not a snap. That's actually done over a period of time.

Secondly, it's not going away. There have been some comments in some recent op-eds and columns suggesting that Ontario Place is going to become a parking lot, that the Ontario Science Centre is going to be wiped out, that the two experiences, a little time, you know, the groupings that you have where children and adults and their parents can actually go and still celebrate something about it, are not going to exist at some point later on. We don't know a lot of these things and maybe we should and maybe we should have a more defined program. I'm not disputing that. But as of right now, I'm willing to stand by the fact that in 2028 there will be something.

Not everyone's going to love it, but something will be in place. Cynthia, do you have to acknowledge that in spite of efforts by groups such as yours and many others, the opposition leaders as well, the Premier's popularity has not been dented by this so far. Would you acknowledge that? So far, that appears to be annoyingly true. You're welcome. But when are people going to connect those dots?

The cultural identity things also go beyond institutions like the Science Center and Ontario Place. What about our health care system? What about our system, our social safety net? All of these things that are being chipped away at by this government. Identity is important. The terror fight and the sovereignty fight right now,

or threat right now, is coming from the terror, to the orange terror to the south, who says, we're not really even a country. Well, are we a country or not? Are we going to stand up for Ontario values? Are we going to say that we want to, in places like Ontario Place, show off Ontario innovation? We want to use Ontario materials. We want to have a place where Ontarians can come together without having to pay a big

admission fee and enjoy what's unique about Ontario, which might be the edge of the Great Lakes. But haven't we, you have to say for 15, 20 years, we just haven't done enough down there. I'd liken it to Navy Pier in Chicago on Lake Michigan where you've got a great mix of public and private. You want to just go take your own lunch down there, it's beautiful by Lake Michigan. You want to have a fancy dinner on a boat, you can do that as well. You want to ride a Ferris wheel, you can do that, see a concert.

Why have we done so badly with Ontario Place? And I get it, I get the preservation angle, but I think Doug Ford has, you know, again, for better or worse, we really can't judge this project until it's over, and I get it, it's too late by then, but don't you think we've just let this sit for too long? There's a lot of, like I said, a lot of premiers,

a lot of governments should lay sleepless at night going, I could have done something more than I did with that land. That's right. Well, I wouldn't disagree one bit about that. Although we were on the path to renewing Ontario Place. So have you been to Trillium Park? It is a beautiful, stunning park. For those who live outside Toronto, Trillium Park is where?

It's on the edge of Ontario Place. It's about seven acres of beautifully designed park that evokes the north, evokes everything that is unique about the physical environment in Ontario. So it's incredibly popular. And the idea was to continue to extend that. And that is what would make more sense to be doing with the West Island of Ontario place, where people could come and enjoy what is emblematic of Ontario.

Michael, you're a truck driver. Can I just say one more thing? In fact, I don't know whether people, this seems to be part of that, when Doug Ford started this process, there was a lot said about Ontario Place. Nothing happens there, it's dead, you know, nobody goes there. Well, the truth is, in 2018, so the year that he was elected, there were 1.4 million visitors to Ontario Place, not counting the Budweiser stage and Echo Beach. So that is rivals the CN Tower. So it is not true that people were not going there.

It was a lifesaver during COVID. You can hear over and over again from people about how important it was to be able to go there and walk, run, take their dogs, take their children to a place that was beautiful, safe, and nurturing. So it is really a libel, I think, to say that Ontario Place was not being used. I think that number's tricky. Only in the sense that the CN Tower,

you probably only go there once a year. And maybe even you'll go there once every four. I remember taking my kids there one time, and then that's it. They've seen it. They've seen the CN Tower. We wanna have multiple visits to where you're right. You could take a walk, you could take a bike ride, but then you could see a concert.

Maybe you wanna have people come in and go to the spa. They've built Hotel X down there. That whole area, everything around BMO Field, exhibition, we're just sitting on that land and it's valuable land that we could be building some element of retail. Again, finding that balance there. Toronto's unemployment rate is close to 10% right now. We have to think about those things as well.

That's the key right there. We need to use it more properly. 1.4 million visitors is nice. It should be higher than that. And there should be more to it than that. We always get stuck on this. You're reminding me a little bit, I'm not being mean, of Mel Hurtig in the national party,

I'm thinking that we only look at things in a particular way. This is the way it's set up, this is the way it's done, we can't look at anything else. Progress has to happen, and we have to use our space wisely. The Ontario Science Centre is a classic one. Went to it many times,

we had membership for my son many, many years. You know, everyone was saying, well, look, the report came out. It only says that four to 6% of the roofs are having problems. Let's just fix the roofs and it gets better. My family's been involved in mortgage investments for over a century.

Let me say that when it starts at four to 6%, even if you fix it, it's going to get worse. Everyone on the left and the right agree that the building, which obviously had some practical purpose, was getting old, was getting stale, needed to be improved. I wandered through it. It really did. Ontario Place, lovely.

No one questions that. I don't naturally go to it anymore. I went to it more when I was younger. Why? Because it hasn't been used properly for years. It's fine to say how wonderful it is, and that we have the native part here, I went to it more when I was younger. Why? Because it hasn't been used properly for years. It's fine to say how wonderful it is, and that we have the native part here,

and that we have our historical landmark there. All very important, all very relevant. I love history, I love politics. That's what I studied most of my life. It has to be used wisely. OK, then I know you want to- Whether you like it or not, it's not right now. Yeah, what I think is interesting

is that it's clear that Ontario Place had a mission and a purpose. And when I think about public-private partnerships, why does it have to nudge off balance the mission of the thing? Can't a private company come in and say, hey, we can do this better, this mission. And for me, this seems like I'm worried

about judging at the end, because we can't, but if someone said, hey, I can do your original mission better with more money, more capital, more jobs, who would not be for that? Let me keep this with you, because we are in the middle of an election campaign right now. And some people are going to be comparing and contrasting what the parties have to say about our crown jewels, as we're calling them here. You do a lot of work with museums and galleries and you have followed their

their path through various governments over the years. So tell us the Art Gallery of Ontario, Science North, the Ontario Science Centre, the Royal Ontario Museum, the list goes on, Art Gallery of Hamilton. How has this government done relatively speaking protecting our crown jewels? How has this government done, relatively speaking, protecting our crown jewels? Well, I mean, I might start in a different place with cutting back from the Ontario Arts Council a $5 million cut, which doesn't seem like a lot, but to the artists. And I always like to think of these grants as investments rather than expenditures, right? If you don't give project grants, if you don't give operating grants, you don't have an ecosystem. And then the folks that can pop out the other end that

our world recognized and draw people to Ontario, right? No, I get you. The crown jewels. Let's focus on the crown jewels. So ROM, I think I'm doing two searches with the ROM right now. They've got an incredible strategic plan called OpenROM.

They're hiring up like crazy. I helped place their indigenous curator that's in there right now. I think they're doing everything they can. Obviously, they can be better resourced. But I think the people of Ontario are going to have to demand whether they want. I think here's the central problem. Our cultural institutions have objects from all over the planet, which is great.

We can all gawk at these things, and we can see them now on our phones. But for someone to connect the dots between those objects and how we interact on the street at work, that is going to cost money. What I don't hear you saying then, I don't hear you saying Doug Ford, the barbarian, has brought an end to all of our cultural beautiful spots in this province and not to be thrown out for that reason. Yeah, I don't feel that way. You don't feel that way?

OK, all right. I know I probably would be better for the panel if I said. No, no. I'm quite happy to hear it. I will say that I think, to your point earlier, that culture spending has always gone up federally under conservative governments. I think that's something that we don't talk about enough and I'm pretty agnostic in who's sitting in the seat.

As long as the money is going up and people acknowledge there is a thing called Canadian culture and we need to finance it whether it's private or public funding I'm all for that. Greg tell me again on the issue of what people are talking about right now, we're talking about these places that a lot of Ontarians go to on an annual basis or every other year, whatever, but affordability, healthcare, education seem to be the things that they are talking about most during this election campaign. If you had to rate this issue, where is it in the panoply of things?

It's hard to swing a vote. It's yeah, it's hard to swing a vote just based on this stuff. Like I will tell you, the Science Centre, especially for the location, rips me up. I talk, we have a lot of teachers and educators that text the show. I'm out in Ajax in Durham Region. The zoo's really important because it's close by. I don't want to see anything happen to that zoo. It could be called the Scarborough Zoo, but it's the Toronto Metro Zoo.

The Science Centre was a wonderful location to be able to get to from north of Toronto and across that sort of coming east west from the east part of the 401. But I go back to Menon's point, like there's always been also corporate support for the arts. You can't go into the ROM and you can't go into any museum anywhere and not see this exhibit sponsored by, now it could be Budweiser or maybe I'm thirsty, I don't know, but remember that like I'm a rock and roll guy there used to be such consternation about oh my goodness this tour of this band is sponsored by this beer and it's like how it the art should be so unique.

We know there has to be that mix of public and private. Again, it is just going to be that balancing act. So some of it has to be city money. You rely on corporate support if you're an art gallery. You rely on donors, like to a university almost, to keep contributing and contributing. You can't survive on memberships alone. Cynthia's organization, Ontario Place for All, put this tweet out. Do we still call it a tweet even though it's ex?

Well, it's an ex-post. It's an ex-post. We still call it tweets. You do, okay. So I'm going to put this up. Here's what Ontario Place for All put out there. Choose an Ontario-made product, Ford says. We were asking him all along to do that at Ontario Place, not too

late to change course. All right, under the threat of a trade war, do you think people are going to be more eager to keep our public institutions, if I can put it this way, as Ontario as possible? Well, I think we're already seeing that. Aren't we seeing grocery stores are now putting up signs saying grown in Canada. Canadian made, yes. Canadian made. And one of the things about the original build of Ontario Place was Robarts and Davis were very proud to say,

every bit of it was from Ontario. The steel was from Ontario. The design came from Ontario designers. The landfill was from Toronto. The landfill was from the subway. Anyway, so are we going to see that with the spa? No, I don't think so. They have a program of, you know, an Austrian program or their program, whatever, their

business program, of where they source their materials, where their designers come from, where their engineering comes from. They've bought an engineering company. You know, we're not going to see the same made in Ontario product. In which case, let me put the question to you. Is Doug Ford trustworthy to protect our crown jewels? Cynthia certainly seems like she is not sold on that.

Yeah, but again, Doug Ford has so many critics, it's not surprising. And unfortunately, as someone with my ideology, I'm quite used to that, that there's always this mythical thing that we're doing, there's this hidden agenda. It's been going on and on for God knows how many years. The classic example was, if we can divert just for a second,

Paul Martin and the liberals tried to use that argument in 2004, it worked, but they held a minority government. They tried the same damn thing nearly two years later, and it bombed. Why? Because people weren't buying it any longer. The same thing works here. You can say whatever you want about Doug Ford,

and you can oppose him in many different ways, and that's fine. We live in a democracy. We believe in intellectual discourse. That's perfectly okay. He is not, as has been said, he is not this monster everyone makes him out to be. In fact, if anything, as I've talked about in previous columns and things that I've discussed,

Ford is a mix of a whole different series of things that a lot of modern conservatives don't even necessarily subscribe to. And that's conservatism, populism, retail politics. Now some of those things obviously exist in all of us, but not in the same thing. You must wrestle with the amount of public money that's being utilized here. This is a huge issue. I mentioned those other companies.

Ripley's, Canada's Wonderland. No matter what the brand is, we would all hesitate. I could bore the heck out of you how much it bothers me, including when my side does it. It's the first time you mentioned you're upset about the public money. But at the same point, I've always recognized private-public partnerships

as being beneficial in society, because it brings the best of both worlds. It brings the ideas that people like myself hold near and dear to their hearts, and it allows the public to have an entree into the decision-making process. Is it perfect? No. But we had no entree into this decision-making process. It was all top-down. It was all, like, we begged Ontario...

It was a Fed-a-Com place. Do you think that's unique in politics? Ontario Place for All begged to have a role in making the decision about what would happen at Ontario Place. I'm not saying that they shouldn't have opened it up. I agree with you. But at the same time, I'm not surprised because unfortunately, and I think it's more the day and age than anything else, we just sort of assume or know what the other side is going to say. So it's just taking up a lot of time and know what the other side is going to say.

So it's just taking up a lot of time. And time is money. You've got to keep moving forward. Well, maybe we would have had a better outcome if the public had been involved. And maybe it would have been the same. Because we might have learned that, like, nobody asked for a spa at Ontario Place.

People might have asked for more animation, more opportunity to do things. Maybe they wanted the Children's Village back. I bet they did. Well, spas have a nice popularity in Europe. I've been to them. They're perfectly fine. There's nothing wrong with introducing international ideas, which you're opposed to. I want to call it a water park. I feel like that hits the middle class more. Middle class people say they're sick of their kids, they wanna get out of the house in the winter, they wanna go to a water park.

The spa sounds too elite. If there were more public involvement in this, would we be putting a big spa on the waterfront? No, I don't think so, and that is part of the problem, and that's gonna be part of the judgment. If this is an economic stimulus, if this is something, again, if Live Nation knocked on the door and said, hi, we need money to bring more artists in or concerts, then no.

And we're talking about the arts. Again, for all the money that goes into museums, a ton of music venues have closed in the city of Toronto. A ton of them. I just read the other day, like Elmo Combo's in trouble. We're gonna lose a lot of these huge historic venues. And already, even under Olivia Chow's government, we've had the Just For Laughs festival canceled,

we can't get the Taste of Danforth open again. We got a lot of, like for all that, you know, there's a bit of a left-right divide maybe on the culture that matters to them. We seem to have a split sometimes. A lot of our cultural iconic festivals or places are closing up, so don't they deserve the same kind of public money consideration?

I think you got to have the conversation. Speaking of iconic cultural things in our province, we can listen to you on the radio between what hours in the morning? 5.30 a.m. to 9 a.m. You get up early. Good for you. That's Craig Brady, host of Toronto Today on 6.40. Men in Dworka is here, president, NPD Culture Consultants. And on the other side of the table, Cynthia Wilkie,

member, former co-chair, Ontario Place for All. Michael Tobe, you can read him in The, former co-chair, Ontario Place for All. Michael Tobe, you can read him in the National Post, Troy Media and Looney Politics. Thanks everybody for a really solid discussion. Well done. Thank you. Thank you.