Last week, we saw an extraordinary action taken by the Chiefs of Ontario, and it’s one that we strongly support, and I hope that the member from Kiiwetinoong will stand in solidarity with the Indigenous leadership from across the province, in fact, who have filed this injunction. Grand Chief Abram Benedict of Akwesasne said on Thursday that “Canada should be working with us to confront the climate crisis and close gaps on reserve instead of creating policy in an ivory tower that exacerbates the affordability issues our citizens face.” It’s an incredibly insightful comment, Mr. Speaker.

We know that our government has worked to reduce the cost of fuel for planes flying into the north, for people operating vehicles across the province and building electrification projects to a scale never seen before in this province. We just hope that the federal government will finally get the message and scrap this tax before the court—

The government members on the opposite are highlighting the political affiliations of folks that I’m reading about—okay. I’m standing here as a New Democrat, and I also support an injunction or using the courts. I would say, “Use this building,” but we can’t because we have a time allocation motion that says, “Shut ’er down,” that says we can’t go to committee, that says how dare we bring this back for discussion.

So, yes, people in the community—some of them are New Democrats, but I think you’re probably also losing a lot of your base, because there are such people as Conservatives who like to spend time at their public treasures like Ontario Place, like the Ontario Science Centre. I thank the member for reminding me of that. That was a good point to have made.

I had mentioned earlier about the business case and the parking garage, and I have put on the record about the process with the parking garage and the redevelopment of Ontario Place, because I sat at estimates committee, and I had the opportunity to ask the Minister of Infrastructure a number of questions. I took the opportunity to ask Michael Lindsay, the CEO of Infrastructure Ontario, all sorts of questions. I found out that there had been no fairness monitor in the process, which is highly unusual. The, sort of, feeling of “Just trust us. Don’t worry. It was a fair and equitable process,” but no fairness monitor? In terms of scoring of the criteria, there was no scoring. What was the criteria? I was told—and you can review the Hansard; it was back on June 7, 2023, at infrastructure estimates—that there were folks in the room who discussed it. I asked who the folks in the room were, and it was like, “Oh, we’ll take that back and see if we can provide that to the committee.” We’re still waiting. But that’s how business gets done? Like, that’s wild.

Something else that I will go back in time—here’s the question I asked about Mark Saunders. Some of you may remember that Mark Saunders had been special adviser or whatever his title was on Ontario Place. He made like $70,000 for the year and four months that he was employed as the special adviser on Ontario Place.

I asked, “Can we have copies of the reports or recommendations from Mark Saunders, as the special adviser on Ontario Place redevelopment?”

The minister said, “He fulfilled that role. We can take that back and respond.”

I said, “I’ll take from that that there were reports or recommendations from his work.”

The minister said, “It was largely before my time as minister. My understanding is, his preliminary role was really to be a liaison with the city of Toronto.”

I asked, “Were there formal recommendations or reports? If so, can we have them?”

And Mr. Michael Robertson said, “My name is Michael Robertson. I’m the assistant deputy minister of the Ontario Place Redevelopment Secretariat in the Ministry of Infrastructure.

“As the minister has said, Mr. Saunders was a special adviser on the project and provided his advice directly to government. The ministry does not have any reports that he may have made. As for his contract with the government, this was through an order in council. We can get that information and provide it to the committee.”

Guys, this is how business gets done. He’s a liaison. He’s not responsible for producing anything. He gets 70 grand for a year and four months of what?

Interjection: Sign me up.

So the business case is the next chapter that I want to talk about here. The business case I’ve been begging for, for quite some time. I’m the critic for infrastructure in the province, and I had asked why the Ontario Science Centre needs to be moved to Ontario Place, and, Speaker, there’s no rationale that has been thus provided.

I’ve looked at the business case for relocating the Ontario Science Centre that they just released the other day. Here’s from an article from Canadian Architect:

“Scratch below the surface, and there’s some clear problems with the province’s math....

“The new science centre is proposed to sit on top of a 2,000-space underground parking garage, which, if built, will cost about half a billion dollars. If the parking moves to a different location ... the science centre will need to build its own basement and foundations—at a cost of perhaps some hundreds of millions of dollars.”

Beyond this, it “also excludes the cost for a 150-metre-long underground, two-level link between the new Science Pavilion on the mainland and the bridge to the pods—an enormously expensive component of the project due to its proximity to the waterfront, and an essential element for allowing ticketed visitors to move from the main science pavilion to the Pods and Cinesphere,” which is just not included, just not there.

“On the other side of the equation ... the science centre’s required repairs result from the government choosing not to invest in the building over many years. Someone will need to pay for those repairs eventually, should the building continue to be used, either as a cultural building or for another purpose. ‘If it survives, the province is saving money by dumping perhaps $300 million in liabilities on the city. It’s a shell game, nothing more,’” they write.

“The business case’s costing for the relocated Ontario Place omits the costing for the rehabilitation of the pods and Cinesphere”—it’s just not in there; shh, don’t talk about it—“as well as the cost for building the underground Science Link, shown in the site plan above, and detailed in the test fit documents as a two-storey underground link.”

“It doesn’t include most of the renovations to the heritage pods, including the $25.5 million currently being spent on recladding those structures....

“There’s also a human cost to the math. The government’s case for relocating the Ontario Science Centre is strongly based on the efficiencies of a smaller facility, but also on its ability, paradoxically, to attract more visitors. It estimates that 1.15 million people will visit the relocated science centre in its first years. It also expects to accrue cost savings through staffing reductions: The estimates count on laying off 53 people, or one out of every six people who currently work at the science centre.”

For the people, eh?

“Of course, it’s not surprising that the business case contorts itself an attempt to justify the relocation.... the provincial government had already determined, more than two years before any public announcement, that it was determined to relocate the Ontario Science Centre to Ontario Place. The business case was specifically constructed to justify this decision....

“While we may take it for granted, there is value in taking care of what we have: a magnificent, much-loved museum at the Ontario Science Centre that is in need of some TLC. The value of such a gem isn’t something we usually quantify, but if we did—in a neutral way that accounted for cultural value, economic value, social value, and sustainability—it’s clear how the business case would land.”

That was a thoughtful piece by Canadian Architect.

Basically, when we have looked at the mess that has been this process, the need for FOIs, the need to try to get answers at committee, we have seen that this government has not been forthcoming with any actual numbers. We have seen that this is hidden, that the lease is not allowed to be for public consumption, that this bill is not allowed to go to committee; we cannot hear from people.

What on earth this government is hiding from—you’re literally hiding from the people, which is shameful. And if you think you have such buy-in, if every single mom with three kids that the Minister of Infrastructure talks about all the time, that she just wants a day at the wellness centre—she wants to be able to feed her kids. She wants her kids to go to school and have the supports that they need. She wants a place that she can afford. She wants rent control, in all likelihood. I’m sure that everybody could use a day at the spa, but I don’t think that this is what this is about.

We don’t know anything about the deal. I know that I have stood in this Legislature and asked what the government can point to to ensure that the financing is even there. Therme has made promises all around the world, pledging to spend billions on new luxury spas. Therme promised to invest $350 million in Ontario, but we have seen that it’s Ontario taxpayers who are going to be paying $650 million for a new parking garage, new water infrastructure and other site prep for public land that Therme is going to be in control of for 95 years. I wonder if spas are still going to be a thing in 95 years. Maybe. Honestly, is this like the fountain of youth? With the way the minister of mega spas, or Minister of Infrastructure, is all about this project—what’s in the water? Speaker, 95 years is a really long time, and a really long time when Ontarians don’t get to see the numbers, don’t get to see the lease. Therme was on the brink of bankruptcy only three years ago. We don’t even know if they actually have the money. And 95 years is a long time for a company that barely made it through the decade.

So we’ve asked the Premier—I stood in this House and I asked the government to prove to the public that any due diligence has been done to confirm the source of Therme’s financing. Crickets—and not to say crickets are financing it; I’m saying that’s all we’ve heard, is nothing. You don’t have to justify yourself to anyone—no committee, no answers. We’re not the boss of you; we get it. But you still are the government in the province of Ontario, and you owe Ontarians some kind of accountability.

A lot of other folks have been looking into Therme’s financing, and it is a convoluted, tangled, interesting web. It’s four pages of who knows who in all of the different—I will read this piece, also from John Lorinc. He examined how the company behind the Ontario Place mega spa makes money.

He said, “What’s apparent from the company’s nested corporate and philanthropic relationships is that it is exceptionally well connected to the worlds of art, philanthropy, finance and real estate....

“What’s less clear is the origin of Therme’s capital, and, in particular, the funding required to build an almost half-billion-dollar facility on the west island at Ontario Place. Given that the Ford government is executing a 95-year lease through a process overseen by Infrastructure Ontario, it would seem prudent for provincial officials to know precisely who it is dealing with, the ultimate source and terms of the firm’s financing.”

But we don’t get to know, and here we have a time allocation motion which says, “Shh. There’s no committee. No one gets to come and ask questions. There’s no third reading debate.” This is the last chance that we’re going to have to talk about Ontario Place in terms of the piece of legislation. It’s my remaining six minutes to talk about the fact that I only have six minutes, because of the time allocation motion before us. It’s something else.

We’ve got a conversation about Ontario Place and a conversation about the Ontario Science Centre. The Ontario Science Centre is a beloved piece of public infrastructure. People love to go there. We’ve had letters written in about people who have been going there for a generation. They remember going there as kids. I remember being there as a kid. Moriyama had said that with proper investment, it would last over 250 years. Well, guess what? We didn’t have that proper investment. Do you know why? Because Infrastructure Ontario is the landlord. This province is the landlord—