Ontario Place

Saturday January 12, 2019

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday January 12, 2019

Paving over Ontario Place for mall, casino would be travesty

A gambling casino. A 1.6-million-square-foot “megamall.” An amusement park, including the world’s largest ferris wheel.

July 30, 2012

These are just some of the things that Premier Doug Ford has mused about locating at the site of Ontario Place, the 62-hectare park on the west side of Toronto’s downtown, adjacent to the CNE grounds.

Much of Ontario Place has been closed since 2012, when then-premier Dalton McGuinty was trying to save money. But in truth, it had been on the decline for years, the victim of outdated thinking and vision. In 2017, his successor Kathleen Wynne unveiled a partial redevelopment plan worth about $30 million, which would have seen a waterfront park be a central attraction.

That plan received strong public support, and much of the money has been spent. But Ford’s government killed it early on after being elected. Nowhere on the list of things Ford is exploring is public parkland.

February 3, 2012

This is more than just a Toronto story. Ontario Place is an important public asset for all Ontarians. Paving it over for a mall, casino or amusement park would be a travesty. But it appears that’s where Ford is headed. He appointed a crony and Conservative fundraiser to oversee the redevelopment. And considering that his environment minister is the former head of the province’s gambling corporation, anything is possible.

Ford and his brother, Rob, brought some of their plans forward while the latter was mayor and the former was a councillor. Their ideas were soundly defeated in the face of public opposition.

Now that he’s premier, Ford probably thinks public opposition doesn’t matter. It’ll be interesting to see if he’s right about that. (Source: Hamilton Spectator Editorial) 

 

Monday July 30, 2012

By Graeme MacKay, Editorial Cartoonist, The Hamilton Spectator – Monday July 30, 2012

Waterfront Toronto is best placed to revitalize Ontario Place 

A new proposal to turn the sad and faded amusement park of Ontario Place into a landmark destination with a world-class park and small waterfront neighbourhood is a great idea.

The report released Thursday calls for a mix of parks, a Forum-like music venue, free and easy access to the water, and residences and business in one corner of the islands to draw enough people to the area to keep it vibrant all year long. The report, quite rightly, rules out a casino or a wall of condos that would cut visitors and Torontonians off from the water’s edge.

Unfortunately, this compelling vision put forward by a ontario panel headed by John Tory is just the latest in a long line of reports calling for an overhaul of this dated, provincially owned venue.

Everyone agrees that Ontario Place, which has seen annual visitors plummet from three million to 300,000, could be so much more than it is right now. But politics, funding and sheer bureaucratic inertia always get in the way.

That’s why the entire site should be ontario-place-too-sensible-to-be-implemented’ target=’_blank’>turned over to Waterfront Toronto. That public agency, unlike the city or province, has a proven record of turning dreary stretches of our waterfront into creative, welcoming spaces and balancing the need for public space with some development to help pay for it all.

Indeed,  Ontario Place falls right in the middle of the public agency’s mandate to revitalize the lakefront from Ashbridge’s Bay Park in the east to past Marilyn Bell Park in the west. And since it makes little sense to revitalize Ontario Place while ignoring the underperforming city-owned Exhibition Place just a stone’s throw away, its revitalization mandate should also be handed over to Waterfront Toronto.

What’s held back improving both of these places, more than anything else, is that the province owns one and the city the other. For decades, city hall and Queen’s Park have proven incapable of getting their acts together to do what’s right for Greater Toronto residents. It’s well past time for a new approach.

The report’s suggestion that 10 to 15 per cent of Ontario Place be used for private development to help pay for the rest of the project is certain to generate heated debate. It makes good sense but — and it’s a big caveat — governments must still be ready to put considerable funds into a redevelopment plan. If politicians, who feel particularly hard up for cash right now, try to fund the project solely through revenues from private development, the parks and public spaces will become nothing more than postage stamps amid a sea of condos.

Torontonians have seen far too much of that along the waterfront already. Preventing that from continuing, and trying to undue some of the damage, is why Waterfront Toronto was created in the first place. It is uniquely placed to redevelop Ontario Place so that it fits in with broader waterfront revitalization efforts and the city’s needs.

If we continue with the turf-war approach of the past,  Ontario Place stands no chance of becoming the family-friendly public destination that it was when it opened in 1971 — and could be again.(Source: Toronto Star) 

 

Friday February 3, 2012

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday February 3, 2012

Ontario Place Closed

By the standards of government communications, as we know them today, it was downright poetic.

“Ontario Place is Ontario,” the advertisement in the Nov. 10, 1970, edition of The Globe and Mail proclaimed. “It will show us and the world where we’ve been, where we are and where we are going.”

If we’re going to be honest, even in its heyday the lakeside complex never did quite live up to those lofty dreams. It was a great place to see a concert, at least back in the era of the quaint little Forum and its revolving stage. It offered a unique movie-going experience, until commercial chains put in Imax theatres of their own. It had bumper boats and a waterslide and a “punching bag forest,” which all held a certain magic for kids. None of this really made it the beacon to the world – Toronto’s answer to Expo 67 – that its creators envisioned.

But there was something noble about those ambitions. And there is something depressing about how they ultimately panned out: the provincial government of the day announcing Wednesday that it’s indefinitely shutting most of Ontario Place’s current operations, because it’s tired of losing $20-million a year.

This is what it’s come down to for a province $16-billion in the hole, scratching and clawing for any dollar it can save. Rob Ford, the hawkish mayor of Toronto, likes to talk about keeping things we “need to have,” while letting go of ones that are just “nice to have.” Dalton McGuinty’s provincial Liberals don’t speak quite as bluntly, but with the odd exception – an ongoing investment in the Pan Am Games – they increasingly find themselves forced to embrace a similar philosophy. (Source: Globe & Mail)