TORONTO — Ontario awarded nearly $1 million in contracts to various companies to write a business case on moving the Ontario Science Centre to Ontario Place on Toronto's waterfront, The Canadian Press has learned.
Liberal critic Adil Shamji, whose riding is home to the science centre, said it is "outrageous" that Premier Doug Ford spent $1 million of public money on consultants "to tell him what he wanted to hear." “Securing a publicly owned cultural anchor, such as the OSC, could be an important addition to counter negative perceptions of the commercialization and privatization of this unique waterfront public asset,” the consultants wrote in the business case.
The report concluded that relocating the science centre from its current location to Ontario Place would save about $250 million over 50 years — largely because the new building will be half the size. The current science centre building is facing $369 million in deferred and critical maintenance needs over the next 20 years, the business case said.There have been 42 projects deemed "critical" since 2017 that haven't been repaired, and of those projects, the science centre had asked for funding for seven of them at least three times in the past five years but was denied each time, the auditor wrote.