white elephant

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) 

 

Wednesday January 4, 2012

By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator, Wednesday January 4, 2012

Hamilton too late to recoup velodrome: McMeekin

Hamilton can’t buy its way back into the Pan Am velodrome race with mystery millions, says Liberal cabinet minister Ted McMeekin.

Sources told The Spectator last week a private corporation is willing to make a multimillion-dollar commitment to a permanent indoor cycling oval in Hamilton — even though Pan Am officials recently announced Milton as the facility host.

Milton has until Jan. 24 to sign a binding agreement to help fund the facility, which could cost up to $45 million.

“I guess if it doesn’t work out in Milton, everything is back on the table,” said McMeekin, the Minister of Agriculture and MPP for Ancaster-Dundas-Flamborough-Westdale. “But the Pan Am people have been pretty clear Milton has been selected as the (velodrome) site. Clearly, the Pan Am people have moved on.”

Unless Milton backs out, McMeekin said he didn’t know how new mystery funding could help Hamilton’s cause “after the horses have left the barn.”

Hamilton was originally the preferred site for the cycling venue, but lost that status after Pan Am officials rejected the city’s $5 million offer towards building costs. A local fundraising group has continued collecting pledges and lobbying government to build in Hamilton and, in a recent year-end radio interview, Mayor Bob Bratina cited a deep-pocketed “prospective partner” for a local velodrome. (Source: Hamilton Spectator)