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The Ontario Science Centre has been the jewel in the crown of Ontario’s public tourist attractions for decades.
Shame on you, Mr. Premier, for using it as a political pawn in your efforts to justify spending 221 million of our tax dollars on building a huge parking lot for the renovations on the Ontario Place site. Unless the science centre is moved to Ontario Place, there is no reason to build this great elephant of a parking lot.
Maybe Mr. Ford’s government could invest some of the $221 million on the science programming, the maintenance and renovation of this existing proven tourist attraction, rather than closing it down and moving it to the already overcrowded lakeshore site of Ontario Place.
Is it true that the ‘new Lakeshore science centre’ will only be half the size of the original? What a loss for the children of Ontario. Does investing half as much in science make sense in a world that is becoming more technological every day?
Your government’s action to close the science centre is a red flag with flashing, giant neon lights. Look closer. Your government has mostly ignored and refuted so many of the warnings and critical independent reports on so many issues — yet for the science centre, the government’s response was strangely lightning fast. It did not take long for independent engineers and architects to assess the report and disagree that the science centre needed to be closed immediately.
Your government’s action of closing the science centre three years earlier than planned would leave a gigantic hole in the science education for the school children of the Greater Toronto Area and southern Ontario.
It will have a damaging impact on general science literacy and inspiring and training of the next generation of doctors, scientists and engineers. To say the least, your government’s action is cheap, wrong-headed and short-sighted.
David Howell
Orillia
