While the province continues to stand by its decision to move the Ontario Science Centre from Scarborough to Ontario Place, local residents are lobbying to keep the centre near neighbourhoods they feel lack access to the city’s major facilities.
On Sunday, Doly Begum, NDP MP for Scarborough Southwest, organized a rally in east Toronto that drew dozens of people in the rain to call on the provincial government to reverse its decision to relocate the science centre.
Begum’s constituency is right next to the Don Mills district where the centre is located.
Begum said the government’s plan to relocate the science centre will make it harder for people in Scarborough to access the educational facility. She says the government is not listening to the people.
“What I’m hearing from across the city and across the province is that people are not happy with this decision,” she said.
“Are there many places like the science center that you can visit? No,” she said. “If we have something good, something as valuable as the science center, why does the government decide to close it?”
MP Doly Begum told a crowd in Scarborough on Sunday that her community will lose a world-class institution under the province’s plan to move the Ontario Science Centre downtown. She wants to see the site repaired, not relocated. (Alexis Raymon/CBC)
Premier Doug Ford’s government plans to move the science centre from its current location to Ontario Place in downtown Toronto. The new site would be next to a planned spa being built by Austrian company Therme, an expanded concert hall by Live Nation, and new public plazas and beaches. Under these plans, the science centre building will not open until 2028.
CBC News reached out to Ontario’s Ministry of Infrastructure for comment on Sunday but did not receive a response prior to publication.
Zahireen Tarefdar, who grew up near the science center, told the crowd Sunday that children living outside of downtown will be the ones who lose out if the center moves. She grew up in a poorer neighborhood, she said, and the science center offers her and other children in the area educational opportunities they wouldn’t have had otherwise.
“The children across Scarborough deserve better.”
MPP Begum urged the government to provide funds to repair the old site instead of relocating it.
In July, the Prime Minister said that repairing the building would be “foolish” and spoke of “total chaos from top to bottom”.
Architect: Repairs possible, moving unnecessary
In June, the government abruptly closed the science center after an engineering report found that parts of the roof were in critical condition and could collapse in heavy rainfall.
The findings of this report were contested by the architectural firm that designed the building, which opened in 1969.
Brian Rudy of Moriyama Teshima Architects expressed this opinion at the rally on Sunday.
“We could go there tomorrow and repair the supposedly problematic areas on the roof and let people back into the building within a week,” he said.
The Ontario Science Centre near Eglinton Avenue East and Don Mills Road was abruptly closed in June after an engineering report found problems with the roof. Architect Brian Rudy told people at Sunday’s rally that the roof could be easily repaired, allowing the facility to remain in place. (Aloysius Wong/CBC)
The government has said it would be too expensive and that the move would save the province $250 million. Rudy told the crowd Sunday that the move was politically motivated and would be used to justify private development at Ontario Place.
A cost-benefit analysis released by the government last year found that the current building would require deferred and urgent maintenance of $369 million over the next 20 years.
Years of government underfunding have led to the building’s deterioration, the province’s attorney general said in a 2023 report.
The Auditor General’s report also found that the government had made its decision to move the centre to Toronto’s waterfront based on “preliminary and incomplete cost information” and had failed to consult key stakeholders.
