There are now, generally speaking, two interpretations of what happened with the Ontario Science Centre. One is strongly preferred by the government, while the other is strongly believed by the government’s fiercest critics. Neither looks good on Premier Doug Ford and his merry band, however.
Let’s consider the government’s version of this event, which continues to generate so much controversy even weeks after the original announcement. As the government tells it, although it knew that the science centre was in poor shape and was designing a replacement facility for it as part of the Ontario Place redevelopment, it was as shocked as anyone to discover just how badly off the facility was. Presented with a recent engineering report, the Ford government was forced into action ahead of its own schedule. Instead of closing it once a replacement facility was available, it was forced to shut it down with only hours of notice. This surprise shutdown cost support staff their jobs and deprived many families of their planned summer-camp activities.
I’m not even going to get into all the controversy and debate about this version of events. For my purposes at this exact moment, I’m going to accept this version at face value. As noted recently in a column here, this version is still really bad for Ford. It shows that the government was not doing one of the most basic things governments are intended to do: stay on top of basic maintenance needs for publicly owned infrastructure. The Ontario Science Centre was not damaged in some accident, freak weather event, or other surprise incident. It is a victim only of sustained neglect. That this neglect was apparently worse than the government realized is doubly damaging: it speaks both to the neglect and to the government’s obliviousness of the consequences of said neglect.
As I noted in my last column here, how the hell are we supposed to feel about that? What else has the government not been paying attention to as it rots and becomes, in the government’s own formulation, unsafe for human habitation and use? So, yeah, enjoy that version of things, Mr. Premier.
There is, of course, the other version, the one preferred by the government’s harshest critics. In that telling, the science centre didn’t die of neglect; it was murdered. The government wants the science centre off that site so that the land can be redeveloped — allegedly, so the accusations go, by Ford-friendly developers.
For the purposes of this column, I take no position on that, except to say that such a thing would hardly be out of character, given this government’s proven track record.
What amuses me about this scenario is how, to be blunt, even if we assume that the Ford government is acting in bad faith, it did not have to act with incompetence. Shutting the science centre down in the middle of an afternoon, screwing over workers in an economically disadvantaged area and families looking for a camp to send their kids to, is sloppy. There is no series of stealthy land redevelopments that required this thing to be shut down on any particular afternoon. It could have been shut down after Labour Day. It would work just as well for Ford in that scenario and wouldn’t screw over any kids.
Remember, Ford loves folks. Always a huge fan of folks. His government has gone out of its way to seem sympathetic to families. Every educational announcement is couched in language about what’s best for the kids and their families. The cheques the government handed out during the pandemic? Also in theory about the kids. Going after the kids and families on this one — unnecessarily — is just wildly off-brand for the premier and his government. It would be like Ford deciding to borrow an aircraft from the province’s fleet of planes to napalm a brewery. It just doesn’t really make sense.
That doesn’t mean it’s not true. I have found it does not always make sense to expect Ford to make sense. But it does mean, if the accusers alleging bad faith are correct, that Ford is even sloppier than expected. This isn’t even well-executed, clever bad faith. It’s just dumb bad faith.
Consider what we have learned since the closure was announced. A variety of engineers, including the science centre’s original architects, are disputing what’s in the province’s report. Given that the cost of keeping the science centre open into the fall is relatively modest, civil-society groups and even private citizens are rallying to raise the money. The city of Toronto is considering purchasing the site and operating it as a city facility, although the cost involved would make that something of a longshot.
Most important, consider the blowback. When you’ve got wealthy donors, outraged families, and architects volunteering their time all coalescing against you, you clearly have not thought this through.
If, God forbid, part of the damn roof actually had collapsed, we wouldn’t be in this situation. (And in fairness, we’d also have avoided the situation if we’d just taken care of our damn things, but that’s another column.) It’s not clear that any of this is necessary, and it’s especially not clear that it’s necessary right now. Right now, it looks opportunistic. It looks like the government is seizing on some wording in an engineering report to pursue its desired outcome.
Given that and, as mentioned above, this government’s already existing problem with credibility on land-redevelopment issues, you cannot blame people for being suspicious. I do not even blame them for jumping to conclusions, even if I don’t jump to the same conclusions myself.
It’s sloppy. No matter what scenario we go with, this is sloppy. We either let a publicly owned asset crumble until it was unsafe, which is sloppy, or Ford is trying to arrange an outcome to his political liking on only a flimsy pretext and without having thought through what the likely reaction would be. And that’s sloppy, too.
No version of this is good. But somehow both are totally in character for this government.
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