Portions of the Ontario Science Centre have been fenced off from public access as the Ford government prepares to deliver a Friday afternoon update about the future of the popular tourist attraction.
The science centre, which opened its doors to the public in 1969, has been slated for closure by the government after plans were announced in 2023 to move the science programming to Ontario Place as part of a provincial overhaul of the crown land.
Images from the advocacy group Save Ontario’s Science Centre on Friday morning showed blue fencing being erected around the perimeter of the attraction.
The state of repair at the science centre has been under scrutiny ever since a business care, prepared for the Ford government, revealed $369 million in critical and deferred maintenance over the next 20 years.
According to a separate report by the auditor general, at least 42 projects that were deemed to be critical since 2017 were not repaired and multiple requests for funding to address the repair backlog were denied over the past five years.
In 2022, Infrastructure Ontario ordered the closure of a pedestrian bridge that connects the main entrance to the exhibition halls after it was deemed unsafe. In October of that year, an extra $7 million in short-term funding was approved to keep the building open in the interim.
A briefing note obtained by the Ontario NDP last year also suggested the increasing disrepair of the Ontario Science Centre has long been known by politicians at Queen’s Park.
The document suggests the problem was acute long before the Ford government began discussing it publicly.
The briefing note explains that, for the 2021-2022 year, the province has agreed to spend up to $610,000 to address “capital repairs that pose imminent health and safety and asset integrity risks.”
A growing repair log and aging infrastructure has been repeatedly cited by Infrastructure Minister Kinga Surma as a key justification for moving the attraction from its home at Don Mills Road and Eglinton Avenue.
“The structure itself has deteriorated,” Surma claimed in April 2023. “It is falling apart.”
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