Editor's note: This article originally appeared on The Trillium, a Village Media website devoted exclusively to covering provincial politics at Queen’s Park.
The Ford government’s evaluation and selection of the future tenants of Ontario Place “were not fair, transparent or accountable,” the province’s auditor general found.
In her first annual report, Shelley Spence uncovered some applicants, including an eventual winner, spa and waterpark-builder Therme, had “direct access” to a vice-president of Infrastructure Ontario (IO) who was responsible for financial assessments.
Three applicants — Therme and two unnamed companies — also met with staff in the offices of Premier Doug Ford and then-tourism ministers Michael Tibollo and Lisa MacLeod in the summer of 2019, early in the open period of the call for development (CFD). This is despite the CFD document stating “no communication with government staff or appointed officials is permitted” during the process.
The infrastructure agency's vice-president, who is not named in the report, exchanged nine emails and held one phone call with Therme’s legal counsel “on media interest about Therme's involvement in the CFD process, an introduction to the transaction advisor and an invitation to an event at the legal counsel's firm,” Spence wrote.
IO's VP also had two more conversations with other applicants — one on a personal cell phone, the auditor general found.
“By communicating with only some participants during the open period, in contravention with the CFD, there is a risk that the process is not perceived as transparent, accountable and fair to all participants,” Spence wrote.
Evaluation of applicants was 'irregular'
The province’s assessment process was far from objective, Spence found.
Participants were flying partially blind as the province did not disclose nine of its 28 assessment criteria with participants in the call-for-development process — including markers like compatibility with the site, degree of public accessibility and financial considerations to the province, the auditor general wrote.
In the end, the criteria may not have mattered because the overall “consensus assessment” was subjective. One participant, for example, ended up ranking higher than another, despite scoring lower on the “four primary areas of consideration,” Spence wrote.
Applications were evaluated by seven assessors from Infrastructure Ontario (including the aforementioned IO vice-president) and what was then known as the Minister of Heritage, Sport, Tourism and Culture Industries.
During the “consensus meetings,” where evaluators decided on scores for all 34 submissions, the lead assessor “adjusted” several scores, Spence found. Almost 80 per cent of score improvements went to submissions that IO ended up recommending to the government.
Spence noted that the government set the redevelopment process as a real estate transaction, not a procurement. The latter has more rules that were “deemed restrictive … because the government wanted to complete autonomy to select the participants,” she wrote.
Comparable developments, such as Hamilton’s Pier 8 redevelopment and Waterfront Toronto’s Quayside project, were procurements, she noted.
Costs have skyrocketed
The province is now on the hook for $1.8 billion more than it was when the call for development was issued.
As of February 2024, the total Ontario Place redevelopment cost to the public purse is an estimated $2.2 billion, the AG found.
Costs for the new Ontario Science Centre, which will eventually move to Ontario Place, have jumped by nearly $400 million, Spence wrote. That figure also includes the cost of providing parking facilities, which IO estimated to cost from $280 million to over $400 million. The science centre's relocation is now planned to cost hundreds of millions more than what a full-scale rehabilitation of its existing site was estimated to.
More to come.
