I, as the infrastructure critic for the official opposition, have had the opportunity to stand in this House and debate this bill with a one-hour lead, sit at committee and hear from Ontarians, and now, again, put the same question, frankly, that I put at the beginning of this debate: What is this bill seeking to measurably fix?

If we had a dollar for every time the minister used the word “optimization,” we almost could have paid for the parking structure at Ontario Place. But I don’t tangibly know what that means. I understand “optimize” is making it better, but in what way will this bill make the realty portfolio in the province measurably optimized?

To the minister’s point, this is a bill that takes more of the gems of the properties and brings them under that government umbrella—so Infrastructure Ontario, I guess—the Ontario Science Centre being one that folks have talked about in this space, and I’m looking forward to my one-hour lead and delving more into that.

But the Royal Ontario Museum, the McMichael Canadian Art Collection, Science North: When the minister talks about how there might be other opportunities for the province, does she have something in mind for those?

In terms of the government being able to put eyes on or to be notified or to have insight into—I don’t disagree that we hope that the government has insight into big provincial decisions. But Infrastructure Ontario had previously taken over the property management of the Ontario Science Centre, and they failed to do the necessary repairs. One would imagine that the government would know about that, since Infrastructure Ontario is the de facto landlord allowing this neglect to unfold; one can only surmise why.

So I guess, if they’re looking to have insight, they already had it, and we have Infrastructure Ontario who have already been proven to be a bad landlord. So how come we’re giving them more provincial treasures to be responsible for?

Speaker, this particular bill is interesting because, after having followed it all the way through the process, I’m not sure what it is seeking to accomplish, actually. I’ve listened to the presentations from government. I’ve heard a lot about modernizing, optimizing and whatnot. But I don’t really know what they’re hoping to accomplish, and I’m a little short on trust with this particular government, so I have that quiet little voice in the back of my head that worries when I see a bill like this. There is no evidence that further centralization of real estate management will indeed make things better in Ontario. In fact, there’s some evidence that it will make things worse. There is no reason to trust this government’s intentions, especially when we’re not even clear on what they are.

This bill continues the government’s centralization of their real estate holdings, and they have significant real estate holdings. They say “modernizing”; we get worried. I had said earlier that, if we had a dollar for every time the minister said “optimization,” we might actually be able to pay for that parking structure at Ontario Place.

But this bill seems to solve a problem that we can’t identify and that this government has not explained. The 2017 Auditor General’s report was scathing, and it outlined numerous recommendations for this government to clean up its act and improve real estate management. Instead, we got Bill 69 and now this Bill 151, which tinkers around the edges. Instead of public civil servants, who are accountable, looking after things, the government is putting even more under the Infrastructure Ontario umbrella, where they rely on expensive private contractors to be in charge. The private contractors show up a lot in the Auditor General’s report, and nothing is good where it shows up in the Auditor Generals’ report. The public doesn’t trust this government’s decisions. Frankly, I don’t either, and I would like this minister and government to prove that they’re not doing something harmful.

Speaker, this bill, as I said, is the second phase of centralization of this province’s real estate holdings under Infrastructure Ontario. Bill 69 started, and this Bill 151 continues that. In the Auditor General’s 2017 report, the Real Estate Services 2017 report—it was scathing, and it looked at how this province and Infrastructure Ontario looks after—or doesn’t look after—its properties, from contract management to maintenance.

I’ve had a few opportunities through the years at estimates, and I’ve asked many questions of Infrastructure Ontario, with different leaders at the helm. The answer is usually something to the effect of, “Just trust us.” Michael Lindsay, who is the president and CEO of Infrastructure Ontario—I like working with him. I have appreciated that he is quite accessible. The opposition appreciates having access to real information. But Infrastructure Ontario is not necessarily one person or one leadership team; it is all of its private contractors that are not doing the work, not doing the job, that are filling up the pages of the Auditor General’s report.

This particular bill says that it is addressing some of the Auditor General’s concerns, but we don’t see that. The overall conclusion in the Auditor General’s report from 2017—I’ll just read the overall conclusion’s paragraph:

“Infrastructure Ontario could maintain government properties more cost-effectively by better overseeing the companies that it has engaged to provide most capital repair and property management services to ensure costs for capital repairs and property management services are reasonable and projects are completed on time. As well, existing government properties could be used more efficiently, with people occupying less space per person. The agreement between Infrastructure Ontario and the Ministry of Infrastructure needs better performance standards to incentivize Infrastructure Ontario to manage and maintain government properties more cost-effectively.”

So that’s one section, the overall conclusion. None of those concerns were addressed in this bill or in the previous one. I would say that something that folks need to understand, as I said, Infrastructure Ontario is not a bad organization. But if the work isn’t getting done by the people that they’re overseeing, we have a problem. Infrastructure Ontario hands out mega contracts for a few large property management firms, and they’re sending millions of public dollars to private pockets. I don’t know how that is in the best interests of Ontarians, of the taxpayer.

The 2017 AG report found that Infrastructure Ontario’s repair and maintenance expenses are 20% higher than the private sector pays. Ontarians will pay more for repairs and inevitably get less. We ought to bring this work back in-house and restore public sector capacity and affordability. Public dollars need to serve the public interest, not private pockets.

The thing about these embedded Infrastructure Ontario contractors, and what folks need to understand, is that Infrastructure Ontario’s real estate services are actually delivered not by public servants but by embedded private contractors that add layers of shareholder profits, driving up costs for public agencies and Ontario taxpayers. According to the Auditor General, these embedded private contractors do—this is my word, not hers—a garbage job. Despite this poor performance, they keep getting rewarded with contract renewals following flawed procurement processes that favour these entrenched incumbents, these existing contracts. That is what the Ministry of Infrastructure wants to force on all these public agencies that currently manage their own real estate interests.

Bill 151 does not fix the problems that the Auditor General has identified. It entrenches these problems and expands them further, and that is enriching these embedded private contractors at the public’s expense. That does not seem like the right direction.

Speaker, trust is dwindling for this government and their connections. I had the opportunity to sit at committee, and we heard from folks there, but we also received submissions. I wanted to share a letter from the Ontario Nurses’ Association that had been submitted to all committee members, and this speaks to the evaporating trust. Again, because this is a bill that I’m saying—and I’m fairly bright and capable most days—I don’t specifically understand what this bill is seeking to achieve. Optimization, modernization: Those aren’t tangible, measurable things, and if they are, we certainly don’t know what the measures are.

Why the government is doing this remains to be seen, but others are also wondering the same thing. Here is this letter, from February 20, 2024, and this was sent to the standing committee regarding protecting public health care infrastructure in Ontario—actually, a side note before I read this: This particular bill is focused on centralizing real estate assets, and among those are Ontario Health and Public Health Ontario—those entities. Back to their letter:

“I am writing to you on behalf of the 68,000 registered nurses and health-care professionals, and over 18,000 nursing student affiliates represented by the Ontario Nurses’ Association (ONA). Our members work in hospitals, long-term care (LTC) facilities, public health units, the community and clinics across Ontario.

“ONA is deeply concerned by the government’s decision to privatize components of health care. Last year, we strongly opposed Bill 60, Your Health Act 2023, which allowed more private for-profit clinics to perform surgeries and diagnostic procedures. We also opposed Bill 135, the Convenient Care at Home Act, which established the structure where for-profit provider companies can operate and erode Ontario’s public home care system. ONA continues to have deep concerns regarding the use of for-profit nursing agencies and for-profit LTC homes.

“If passed, the Improving Real Estate Management Act, 2023”—that’s this one, Speaker—“gives the Minster of Infrastructure oversight over properties that belong to Public Health Ontario, Ontario Health and Ontario Health atHome. Public health-care infrastructure in Ontario is invaluable. It is critical that buildings, labs, hospitals and other public health-care facilities continue to provide social benefit.

“We are concerned that the proposed legislation makes it easier for the government to sell off public health facilities to private, for-profit developers. We urge the Standing Committee on Social Policy to amend the legislation so that public health properties cannot simply be handed over to well-connected developers. Instead, unused properties should be repurposed for community use. Examples of this include building non-profit community health centres, long-term care homes and co-operative and supportive housing projects.”

That’s signed by Erin Ariss, president of the Ontario Nurses’ Association.

Again, this is what all of the committee members received as one of the submissions at committee. Folks are concerned. They have questions, and I would have imagined that the minister would have taken every opportunity to tangibly explain what this bill and Bill 69—the same question: what it’s ultimately for, what the goals are.

Speaker, we’ve had a few conversations in this Legislature about the Ontario Science Centre, and the Ontario Science Centre is among those properties that are included in this bill, so I will just read from this article here:

“Ontario to Wrest Realty Functions from Agencies.

“The Ontario government is moving to wrest realty functions from 10 additional provincial agencies, including the administrator of the health care system, the manager of Algonquin Park, major museums and convention centres. Newly introduced legislation”—at the time—“follows measures taken earlier this year to centralize authority for real estate management within the Ministry of Infrastructure....

“The proposed new legislation, Bill 151, the Improving Real Estate Management Act, is presented as a means to manage real estate more efficiently and cost-effectively and to give the provincial government more flexibility.”

Basically, it quotes the minister: “If passed, this legislation would create a more centralized approach to how government manages and makes decisions about real estate...”

Again, the centralization for the sake of centralization when we don’t really know why doesn’t make anyone feel good about this.

Ontario Health, Public Health Ontario, Niagara Escarpment Commission, Ontario Science Centre, Royal Ontario Museum, McMichael Canadian Art Collection, Metropolitan Toronto Convention Centre Corp., Ottawa Convention Centre Corp., Science North, Algonquin Forestry Authority—a central government authority would assume control of those properties, so again with the why.

Here’s my concern: When we look at an example that has become familiar, because we’ve spent time talking in this room and also because many of us, as children, went to the Ontario Science Centre—folks still may go and enjoy the magic and wonder of the Ontario Science Centre. Infrastructure Ontario is their landlord, so Infrastructure Ontario is responsible for most of the Ontario Science Centre’s repairs; it’s not the Ontario Science Centre that is responsible itself. That’s according to their 2022-23 business plan. It turns out that Infrastructure Ontario is technically the Ontario Science Centre’s landlord.

Also, when you look at the business plan from 2022-23, you’ll see that the plan also described building conditions as being possibly a risk that ranked as medium high, and that it was ministry capital funding that was the solution to fix those concerns—certainly not the teardown that the minister has been describing. It’s further evidence that Infrastructure Ontario is a neglectful landlord and its privatized real estate management isn’t working, and evidently it’s sometimes oriented towards interests other than the public interest, as we’re seeing with this sad, unfolding Ontario Science Centre situation—and I don’t say the Ontario Science Centre is sad; the situation is sad, because it doesn’t have to be like this. The government could choose to invest in it and actually give it some spit and polish, but they’re choosing not to because they’re wanting to tell that—well, who knows why. But they are now able to tell the story that it is falling apart at the seams and we have to replace it.

Speaker, in the Ontario Science Centre’s 2019-20 business plan, they shared that the 10-year deferred maintenance needs of the building are $147.5 million, so I believe and understand that to be the cost to upgrade everything to appropriate standards, and I believe this would be a relevant comparator with respect to whether it would be cheaper to build something new at Ontario Place or renovate the existing building. Given the huge estimated cost of a parking garage at Ontario Place, I am confident that it is impossible that an entirely new science centre on that site would be cheaper than spending $147.5 million—forget the cost of the loss of Raymond Moriyama’s irreplaceable architectural masterpiece.

What is particularly interesting in that report, the 2019-20 business plan from the Ontario Science Centre—it says that landlord Infrastructure Ontario and its private contractor, CBRE, which is responsible for facility management, and not the Ontario Science Centre itself, are responsible for the most worrisome aspects of the centre’s repair backlog. The risk assessment note in the 2019-20 business plan says the centre can capably manage the repairs that it controls, but it says that “bigger issues” include “the degree to which the centre is able to influence decisions related to building improvements,” suggesting to me that landlord Infrastructure Ontario and its private contractor had been slacking in terms of repairs and that they have known about the need for those repairs.

Speaker, I tell you that to tell you this: Here’s a perfect example of just how imperfect this landlord and this system of the private contractors—in this case, CBRE—this is an example of what Infrastructure Ontario as a landlord looks like, and here we have a bill where we’re adding Ontario Health, Public Health Ontario, Niagara Escarpment Commission, Ontario Science Centre, the Royal Ontario Museum, McMichael Canadian Art Collection, Metropolitan Toronto Convention Centre Corp., Ottawa Convention Centre Corp., Science North, Algonquin Forestry Authority.

We’re putting them closer, and what will that look like for them? Are they still going to be able to manage their own affairs? What will that look like? And when we ask, we get fancy words like “optimization.” Well, okay, but that’s not tangible.

Speaker, when we don’t keep costs reasonable, fewer resources are available to maintain aging assets; thousands of public assets in urgent need of capital repairs, and we’re overspending to deliver private sector profits. The deferred maintenance more than doubled from $420 million in March 2012 to $862 million in March 2017, and that’s pulled from the Auditor General’s report. These are big numbers. That’s a lot of science centre exhibit repair.

My question to the government has always been that, since Infrastructure Ontario had taken over the property management of the Ontario Science Centre, they failed to do the necessary repairs, they have been a bad landlord, so how come they’re making their role permanent, and how come we’re extending their reach?

Something else I’d like to delve into, because these are institutions that are laid out in this bill. The Ontario Science Centre: There are a lot of folks pretty unhappy about this. I’ve raised it in this House, that the minister is painting it as a teardown. But it isn’t. I would encourage everybody to take their families and go visit to explore their brilliant exhibits. But their capital repairs and building renewal are years behind, and according to their business plan—Infrastructure Ontario is technically the landlord, so it has been their choice not to invest and not to do those necessary repairs.

What’s needed is for the government to cough up the money for those repairs, and they have chosen not to. The deferred maintenance costs are $147.5 million, as I talked about, and that’s real money, but it’s far less than the cost of the Premier’s proposed parking garage at Ontario Place. There’s no way that the government doesn’t recognize that being a better landlord and doing the necessary repairs would be far less costly than building a whole new science centre.

Now, we saw the “business plan.” It was a business plan, and we waited a long time for it. The Minister of Infrastructure had said that they were going to be triple-checking the numbers. I don’t know that that’s what they were doing with the numbers. But when we saw the business plan, it doesn’t hold water—unlike the proposed parking garage might have to, but that’s another thing.

I did want to raise that the government has made a number of claims about moving the science centre, that it will allow thousands of new developments to be built on the site. The Premier wants density. But the science centre sits at a scenic ravine setting and the lands are considered hazardous due to steep slopes and flood plain associated with the west Don River. That’s not a place for houses. I don’t know what that’s a place for.

So I’m wondering—side question—what the science centre is going to become, since the government is saying it has to be moved to Ontario Place.

They have claimed that the science centre staff want to make the move. They want something new. They want something sparkling to have an opportunity to walk around, said the Premier. But the president of OPSEU, the union that represents some 400 employees at the centre, says, “Not a single one of them is happy. They’re angry. They’re upset. They weren’t consulted.”

The Premier had cited visitors to the centre were down 40%. It turns out that it was 30% that he was pointing to, but it also is interesting that the 2012-13 figures were being compared to pandemic figures of 2022-23, when attendance was slashed. That’s not comparing apples to apples. That’s not fair. It would be interesting to compare now, when people are realizing they’re faced with losing this gem and people are showing up.

The government has claimed that the new site at Ontario Place will attract one million visitors a year—and, hey, there will be people there; maybe they’ll go to the science centre too. But less clear is how many visitors are going to stay away, put off by the unbelievable downtown traffic, their inability to get there. How many visitors are we going to be losing, or people who will never choose to go? There’s a big question mark over that.

Another claim was that the existing centre is a rundown old building—but it isn’t. The centre’s 2017-18 business plan, which highlighted that the building requires ongoing upkeep of obsolete or failed infrastructure, pegged that 10-year-deferred maintenance to $147.5 million, and the government is choosing not to do it. Infrastructure Ontario is the landlord who chose not to do it.

The minister has said that this is going to be less expensive, to make the science centre part of Ontario Place, to build a brand new facility, one with new exhibits. I’m going to talk more about that business case in a minute.

They’ve also said that the new centre is going to be spectacular and state of the art. But do you know what? It’s going to be smaller, about half the current space. So what happens to some of the exhibits? I can’t find the article right now, but one of the things that I had read was that the rainforest exhibit, kind of a cool thing—and maybe the government recognizes that rainforests are also endangered, so if we’re getting rid of rainforests in real life, maybe, I guess, we should get rid of the exhibits, eh? But it’s not making the move to Ontario Place. In fact, the new science centre is going to be, I think, 45% of the size, so it’s going to be basically half the size, but they’re suggesting that it’s going to have so many more visitors—but also 53 fewer staff members to handle those numbers.

This facility was purpose-built to be a science centre, not a parking garage topper. So we are going to be missing out. I also think that, as we saw in the business case, putting this cultural gem at Ontario Place might warm the cockles of a few hearts that are otherwise really aggressively opposed to what is happening at Ontario Place. This maybe sweetens the deal a little bit.

But it’s too bad, and it’s a missed opportunity. If they were bound and determined to put a science facility down at the lake, there’s a fair bit of lake science that one could learn. You could have a satellite location. You could have a science centre water edition. Why not? A little bubble in this giant spa bubble—I mean, what’s another bubble? However, that’s not what we’re seeing. We’re seeing an attack on science, which maybe isn’t just a provincial thing, but anyway.

Folks are quite upset about losing the Ontario Science Centre—I’m reading here: “Architects Rise to Defend Ontario Science Centre.”

Here’s one: “‘I have to use words that are quotable. I’m horrified,’ said Diane Chin, chair of the board of directors of Architecture Conservancy Ontario....

“Architect Joel Leon, programming director for the Toronto Society of Architects” said the Premier’s “statement took the society by surprise.

“‘It’s a very significant building. And it seems like we are in a crucial point, again, in our history here in Ontario, where we have to work quite hard to preserve buildings that maybe sometimes are a bit misunderstood or need a little bit of work to bring them back to their full life.’”

It’s reminding folks that “the science centre was designed by revered Toronto architect Raymond Moriyama in the brutalist style and opened in September 1969.”

It was supposed to have a really exciting life ahead of it, right? The government has claimed, without evidence, that at this point it would be more costly to complete long-delayed repairs to the science centre than to relocate it, with a much smaller facility built atop a publicly funded, government-funded parking structure that alone is going to cost an estimated half a billion dollars.

The late Raymond Moriyama, the world-renowned architect, had stated that with proper maintenance, the Ontario Science Centre could last “far beyond 250 years.” It also has the embodied carbon in it, instead of building a whole new one.

But back to what I had promised, which is that I wanted to talk about the government’s business case because that speaks to the heart of this particular bill, which is centralizing control of the real estate portfolio, including the Royal Ontario Museum, the Ontario Science Centre, the McMichael Canadian Art Collection, Science North—all of these—Ontario Health, Public Health Ontario, the Niagara Parks Commission—lots of people looking with interest.

People love Science North, and I kind of want to know why it’s not just on the government’s radar, but on their list—their list for what? Their list for optimization, their list for modernization. I was at committee with the member for Nickel Belt, and the people in her riding don’t necessarily love the words “modernization” and “optimization” in and of themselves. They would like to know what designs this government has on Science North, if any—or if the government is wanting to use that property for something else, will it be used for community good? There are lots of things needed in her community. So there are a lot of people looking at this with interest.

But a lot of folks have been looking, to this point, at the Ontario Science Centre, because the government and Infrastructure Ontario, as the landlord of that, are at the centre of this bill, with all of these institutions being moved closer under the Infrastructure Ontario umbrella. We have been waiting with bated breath. We’ve been waiting. We’ve been begging for the business case from the Minister of Infrastructure about why they are moving the Ontario Science Centre to Ontario Place.

Here’s a piece that reminds us that the report, the business case, suggests the move could “counter negative perceptions of the commercialization and privatization” of Ontario Place. Yes, probably. If people are so aggressively mad about something, having a deal-sweetener or a positive thing—anyway, I’ll continue reading.

This is from a CTV article:

“According to the report written by Infrastructure Ontario ... about $396 million minimum would be required in the next 20 years to address this repair work, the report suggests.

“Much of the repair work is due to deferred maintenance that has been put off for years. The building’s roof, wall, mechanical, electrical and elevator systems, among other things, are in disrepair and require significant investment.

“The report”—and this is the government’s business case—“also notes that impact from construction related to multiple transit projects in the area, including the Ontario Line, may result in a decrease in visitors.”

Michael Lindsay, president and CEO of Infrastructure Ontario—I mentioned him earlier—had told reporters at a technical briefing, “In short, no matter what money we spend on updating the existing OSC site, it will always be less efficient, oversized for its current needs and be more expensive to operate and maintain.” He also “added that the benefits of having the science centre at Ontario Place was the ‘clustering effect.’ Visitors will be able to enjoy all of the other features at Toronto’s waterfront while also visiting the science pavilion.”

Okay, so this whole bill is about infrastructure and Infrastructure Ontario. This is a quote from Michael Lindsay, and I’m going to read it again because it made me think: “No matter what money we spend on updating the existing OSC site, it will always be less efficient, oversized for its current needs and be more expensive to operate and maintain.”

There’s a rainforest in there. I don’t know how efficient a rainforest exhibit is, but how is the government and how is Infrastructure Ontario measuring efficiency? It’s a science centre. You walk in and you’re in an experiment, okay? You walk in and there’s the magic and majesty of the building, of the place and of the exhibits. It’s not an office building. You don’t walk in and there are tight little cute cubicles that maximize production and whatever; it’s a science centre, and there’s lots of space in there for learning.

In fact, the building also has a lot of nooks and crannies in behind where people can repair exhibits; they can build and make. They’ve got maker spaces. It’s not just about the kids who go there and learn; you also have businesses who use that space for fabrication, that they might make props for community theatre. They use that facility.

Side note: None of those spaces and places are going to be part of the parking garage cherry down at Ontario Place. That’s something that is no longer going to be a part of this. Is that efficient use of space? I don’t know. How are we measuring it? It was bringing money in to the Ontario Science Centre as a side venture, to actually allow people to come in and use their fabrication space. That will now be gone. Rather than the Ontario Science Centre bringing money in to offset some of their costs, that will be gone, so aren’t we reducing the efficiency of the space?

Anyway, “oversized for its current needs.” Guys, the people in this building who have offices—and I know the government members don’t all have offices in this building. There are 14-foot ceilings. I want to point out that we are standing in a beautiful hall of majesty. I don’t know that I would deem it efficient. I still am going to protect it, and I’m going to celebrate it, and I want to ensure that it gets to live longer than the 53 years that the science centre gets to exist because the minister says it’s so old. Well, so is this building, and we are all united in preserving it, ensuring that it has a future for future parliamentarians. We can see the potential in this space, but is it efficient? Maybe you could move the science centre into this room; it already houses the circus on some days. This is not about efficiency necessarily, so for the Infrastructure Ontario folks to only point to money or only point to whatever measures of efficiency they’re using, I don’t think that that’s fair, not when we’re talking about the science centre. It’s not an office building.

I want to thank someone named Elsa Lam. I don’t know Elsa, but I appreciate her work in this article from Canadian Architect. I don’t know how I missed this article from the first debate, but it’s still good and I’m going to use it for this debate. This article is called “Debunking the ‘Business Case’ for Relocating the Ontario Science Centre.” The business case—we waited and we waited and we begged and we begged. The minister said, “We’re triple-checking the numbers.” Then we got the numbers, and I kind of had to triple-check my own ability to do math, because it didn’t add up. It doesn’t add up.

“Infrastructure Ontario has released its business case for a major, and controversial, component of their Ontario Place plans: the closure of the existing Raymond Moriyama-designed 1969 Ontario Science Centre, and its relocation to a smaller, new-build facility at Ontario Place.

“The 78-page document, accompanied by a 333-page appendix, argues that the Ontario Science Centre will require $369 million in deferred and critical maintenance over the next 20 years”—over the next 20 years. That’s not the cost to repair it today; that’s the cost to repair it and then maintain it for 20 years. That’s a 20-year figure, but we’re using it just to explain what it will cost to repair. Also “an additional $109 million to upgrade its exhibitions and public spaces,” so the total is $478 million. In comparison, the report said that “the cost to build a new science centre at Ontario Place would be $322 million, plus $64 million for its exhibitions, for a total of $384 million—$94 million less.”

So just comparing those numbers: $478 million all in, apparently, to rehabilitate the Ontario Science Centre, according to the government’s numbers, versus $384 million for a new one at Ontario Place. Okay? Okay.

However, when you dig into those numbers, the new science centre is proposed to sit on top of a 2,000-space underground parking garage, which, if built, is going to cost—I forget the numbers now.

Okay, half a billion, give or take, so a lot of money, and the science centre is going to be on top of that. So the science centre won’t have a basement or a foundation because that will actually be the parking garage, right? It’s on top. We don’t have to build a basement. It’s sitting on a parking garage. The parking garage is its basement, so that doesn’t count.

We’re talking about building a new science centre, but we’re not factoring in a basement or a main floor because we’re assuming the parking garage. Now, if the parking garage moves to the different location, it’s going to need a foundation. In order to build a foundation, a basement foundation, it would cost perhaps some hundreds of millions. That’s not in the number, okay? So we’re building a science centre that doesn’t have a foundation if the parking structure doesn’t work out—not comparing apples to apples here, kids.

Beyond this, the government numbers for what it would cost to build a new science centre on top of a parking garage, it also “excludes the cost for a 150-metre-long underground, two-level link between the new science pavilion on the mainland”—proposed—“and the bridge to the pods”—think of the iconic pods—which is going to be “an enormously expensive component of the project,” and it will be “an essential element for allowing ticketed visitors to move from the main science pavilion to the pods and cinesphere.”

This massive two-level connector, 150 metres long, underground, beside a lake, isn’t part of the figure. So what it will cost to build a new one doesn’t include this two-level, 150-metre-long link; doesn’t include a foundation or a basement, because it assumes a parking garage, so shh.

Now, on the other side, the science centre’s required repairs: The government has chosen not to invest over many years. Someone will have to pay that eventually, but that’s someone else’s problem, I guess.

“The cost of building a new science centre, which the report pegs at $384 million, disregards pricing put” out “by its own consultants. It doesn’t include quantity surveyor A.W. Hooker’s allowances for soft costs and a construction contingency—including consultant fees”—sorry, these are numbers that are not in the cost of building a new one, okay? So it doesn’t include “consultant fees, project management fees, independent inspection and testing, third-party commissioning, legal fees, development and permit charges, client FFE, and the cost of change orders made post-tender—which amount to an estimated additional $100 million.” That ain’t in the number. “A.W. Hooker’s overall estimate for the project is $499,200,000. And that’s for a building whose program relies on” a 150-metre-long underground link next to the shoreline, not included, and “2,750 square metres of underground functional space—a full floor—but whose price tag does not include that floor, nor any type of parking, basement, or foundations.” Again, it ain’t comparing apples to apples here.

I want to thank Elsa Lam because she puts this all very clearly. I’m happy to share this article with folks.

She goes on: “The business case’s costing for the relocated Ontario Place omits the costing for the rehabilitation of the pods and cinesphere, as well as the cost for building the underground science link … detailed in the test fit documents as a two-storey underground link.” Okay. So the pods and cinesphere that everybody thinks of—and that’s where exhibits will eventually be and whatnot. That’s the link we aren’t paying for, or we’re not talking about, that’s where it goes—they’re old, okay? And they have to be rehabilitated. The money for that rehabilitation—not in this. So we’re going to put exhibits in the pods, but we’re not going to talk about what they’ll cost. But interestingly, that $499-million price tag—and that is from their own consultants. The A.W. Hooker’s allowances and all of that is their work. The $499-million price tag also excludes exhibitions from the majority of the pods.

It says that the Ontario Science Centre—I guess this is their board—“has opted to not program three of the pods on opening day” and that “removes $16.8 million from the previous allowance.” So we have heritage pods that need to be rehabilitated, but the money to do that isn’t included in how we’re going to put the science centre there.

It doesn’t include the “$25.5 million currently being spent on recladding those structures” and the Ontario Science Centre—I don’t know if it’s the board—has opted not to program on opening day, so we don’t even have to count the $16.8 million to have exhibits in three of those pods. Because on opening day, they won’t be ready, so we’re not factoring that into the cost of putting the science centre—

Oh, it is so.

This also “assumes that there will be no phased work, no accelerated construction schedule, and no work completed during the winter, after hours, or on weekends.” All of those things would be more expensive and “command premiums.” Thank you, Elsa Lam.

I’m going to read this section, also from her article. For folks following along at home, this is the article “Debunking the ‘Business Case’ for relocating the Ontario Science Centre.” She has written, “For the sake of simplicity, a somewhat more accurate high-level comparison might be to just put the two consultant estimates, in full, side by side: $499 million for a new science centre and partial exhibitions, to which should be added the cost of a basement level” and “foundations … versus $328 million to repair the existing science centre, including giving its exhibitions and public spaces a generous $100-million refresh,” or a $109-million refresh.

Also, “the massive carbon cost of building an underground, multi-level concrete parking garage … next to a lake—as opposed to renovating an existing building whose embodied carbon has already been locked into place” is something that we should value.

Another piece of this math is “the government’s case for relocating the … science centre is strongly based on the efficiencies of a smaller facility, but also on its ability, paradoxically, to attract more visitors. It estimates that 1.15 million people will visit the relocated science centre in its first years. It also expects to accrue cost savings through staffing reductions: the estimates count on laying off 53 people, or one out of every six people who currently work at the science centre.” Yes, firing one out of every six is going to save them some money.

However, it continues, “They are expecting that 50% more people will visit a facility that is 45% of the size of the current science centre, with a significantly reduced staff managing it all.”

A few more interesting pieces is that, if we were looking at reasons to keep, or what would happen if we kept the science centre where it is—if we actually looked at the numbers, this business case that the government has put forward “assumes that the opening of the Eglinton LRT and eventually the Ontario Line, the densification of the area with condo towers, and the investment of over $100 million in exhibitions and public spaces in the building will result in precisely no increase in the visitors to the science centre in its existing location.”

So all that housing, all the transit, all the money into new exhibits, maybe a couple of bucks to advertising, but no one else will come. And so those are the numbers presented in this triple-checked business case.

Another fun fact, again, from this article: “When you remove the ‘adjustment factor’ of 1.3 that” Infrastructure Ontario “instructed its consultants to apply to the replacement value of the existing building, which carries forward in maintenance costs that are inflated by 30%”—yes, the savings from the Ontario Science Centre evaporate and, in fact, are reversed.

So if we didn’t actually doctor the numbers, if Infrastructure Ontario had not instructed their consultants to use an adjustment factor of 1.3, maybe we’d have a sense of the real number there.

The business case contorts itself and makes clear a justification for relocation.

Two years before any public announcement, it was determined to relocate the Ontario Science Centre to Ontario Place. The business case clearly supports that plan, but there does also have to be value. So, real numbers aside, there should also be value in a gem like the Ontario Science Centre, in the experiential value science should still have value.

It’s a great article. I’d invite everybody to read it. Thank you, Elsa from Canadian Architect, “Debunking the ‘Business Case’ for Relocating the Ontario Science Centre.”

But all of that to say that Infrastructure Ontario and its contractors have not made the case for themselves to be given more properties to look after, that the embedded private contracts are more expensive, significantly so, as clearly laid out by the Auditor General. The Minister of Infrastructure has said at some point that this was in answer to the Auditor General’s 2017 report, but certainly nothing we can point to and all of the other very clear solutions and challenges, as laid out by the Auditor General, remain unaddressed.

Speaker, as I said earlier, I had the opportunity to speak at committee—I’m sorry, not to speak at committee; to sit at committee. I did speak, though. Don’t worry. And I had the opportunity to listen. There were a few folks that came. There was thoughtful discussion. There were also some shenanigans. One of the independent members had brought—

The committee process was a rushed process, and that’s too bad. We have seen that the government wants to do away with the science centre as we know and love it, that they have other plans, but plans that people aren’t clear on. The contract, the lease, anything to do with real estate holdings, the government pulls behind the cabinet curtain and folks don’t get to know. That doesn’t mean they don’t care, and that doesn’t mean they don’t have questions.

I would think that the minister would bend over backwards to be transparent and share those clear numbers with folks, but the breakdown of the business case where Infrastructure Ontario has been the landlord for the science centre and we see mathematic or financial gymnastics in that business case, and that’s not what people are looking for.

I don’t see much accountability in the province for many things. I would challenge the government to point to numbers, to point to where in the budget, to point to a contract that anyone in Ontario is allowed to see. The only thing that we get to see is through the Auditor General and what we can glean from their reports.

This is the second part of an initiative, this bill is a second part in a series of pieces of legislation, as the minister has told us, to pull more holdings under the control of Infrastructure Ontario, to make their role permanent with many more public gems, public treasures, public agencies, and I think Ontarians broadly have concerns. We had someone come to the committee and say that they did not agree with the centralization for centralization’s sake and was challenging them on that, but they raised that we don’t have accountability.

I asked questions of the minister at committee about why the need for more and more privatization, more and more opportunities to pull public entities behind that government curtain, but again we’re not entirely sure for whose benefit. If they’re going to sell stuff, we want to know. Is someone planning to sell something? Like, is there something in the works? Does the government know something the rest of us don’t about the McMichael Canadian Art Collection, Science North or the Ottawa Convention Centre Corp.?

We don’t know what it’s for. Is the ROM planning a sell-off of its assets and property? Is Science North planning that? I don’t think so, but if they know something and they want to stop it, there’s more conversation to be had.

I’ll take the last bit of my time to raise an issue that my colleague from Nickel Belt has raised repeatedly, with much frustration, in this House in various ways. I sit beside her, of course. She spent so many minutes of a debate, one time, breaking down the housing in Gogama story. If you google “Gogama housing” and the MPP for Nickel Belt, you’ll get stories that go back to 2015 or 2014 and whatnot. But the more recent version—I’ll share some of her thoughts from committee that she was actually able to ask the minister directly about. That was a first because, to this point, the member from Nickel Belt has been able to send letters to various ministries and ministers and has received boilerplate responses—and then sends back, and they get the same one. It has been quite a ridiculous process. It was a big deal that she raised it in committee and actually had the minister acknowledge what she said. So I’m hopeful this may one day be remedied.

What the member for Nickel Belt said was, “In September 2020, the Premier, the Minister of Mines, the Minister of Northern Development, the Minister of the Environment—a whole bunch of ministers came to my riding for the grand opening of the Iamgold mine. While they were there, I showed them—’Look across the street, in the community of Gogama. You, the government, own 11 properties that people want to buy.’

“In January 2021, I wrote to your ministry, I wrote to the Premier, I wrote to the Minister of Mines, I wrote to the Minister of Natural Resources—I wrote to seven different ministers to say, ‘There are 1,800 workers sleeping in bunkers at the mine across the street from Gogama. You own 11 properties in Gogama that hundreds of people want to buy. Would you put them up for sale?’ The answer I got back in January 2021 from your predecessor was that you had to do due diligence—’Give us a few months.’ A year later, I checked, and they said it would be one to two years. Two years later, I checked and I wrote to you, and you wrote me back the exact same letter—’Give us one to two years to do due diligence.’

“If having government oversight of real estate is to improve efficiencies, taking three years—actually, we’re going into four; we are into February 2024—to sell 11 homes, and most of them are not worth more than $200,000, is not efficiency. That’s leaving 1,800 workers to sleep in bunkers across the street from where you own properties that are beautiful, that you have paid to maintain—to cut the grass, to shovel the snow, to trim the hedges. They are beautiful. You’ve paid for all this for years.

“Why don’t you put it up for sale? And how is that efficiency, four years later?”

That’s a great question.

The minister said, “I can appreciate your frustration. Certainly, I am aware that there is a need for more housing in northern communities, given the government’s investments in mines.

“The response that was provided to you in the letter is correct.”

She went on to explain the involved process and said, “But it’s noted. I will take that back to the team....”

I’m saying that with a little bit of hope for the member from Nickel Belt, who raises this issue all the time. But it’s an example that, as we’re talking about a government initiative to centralize their real estate portfolio—to make it optimized, maybe more efficient. These are not measurable things—maybe they are, but we don’t know what the measures are. We have a community that has been begging for years and years and years to have those properties be usable. Maybe the government wants to do something else. Maybe it doesn’t want to sell them—but then tell them. Maybe it wants to keep the land but sell the houses on it and it’s—I don’t know. But is there not a conversation to be had? This is why the relationships, the open back-and-forth, are so important and why privatizing real estate and centralizing real estate—why people are nervous.

Speaker, I have had a second opportunity in this House to speak for an hour about Bill 151. Knowing that this is just the second in a series, I have a sneaking suspicion I will be back to deliver what I hope is a very different speech; what I hope is a speech, next time, that says, “Wow, look, the government did something that the folks can trust, that they have full understanding that this solves a problem that’s been identified by an officer of the Legislature.” But I have a sneaking suspicion that may not be the speech I get to deliver.

We don’t know what problem this bill is meant to solve. It certainly does not solve the very clear problems that were revealed in the Auditor General’s 2017 report. This may make them worse. In short, this bill does nothing to address the actual problems cited by the Auditor General with respect to the Ministry of Infrastructure’s poor oversight of real estate services in Ontario.

With that, I look forward to questions from my colleagues.

Okay, there are two parts to that. One, I know we’re not going to have a floating science centre—well, maybe in Lake Ontario, but not in the air. There will be a foundation. But as it stands now, it’s proposed to be the parking garage, is its foundation. So, yes, it will be on something, but that parking garage—that half a billion or whatever—isn’t in the number. Now, if you have to move the parking garage, then, yes, you’re going to need a foundation or a basement, and that amount ain’t in the numbers. So I agree it will be on something. I just wonder what it will cost and if we’ll get to find that out.

The second part was about, I don’t know, optimization, modernization—

But the Auditor General laid out very specific numbers and challenges, and this government has not addressed them. The real question is: Why not?

The cherry-picking—

Interjection.

The cherry-picking is bonkers. It’s a document that does not compare apples to apples, and saying that the critical maintenance, the $369 million in deferred costs—the government is using a number that stretches it over 20 years. That’s not what it will cost to fix; that’s to fix and maintain over 20 years. That’s a big number.

When Infrastructure Ontario had their consultants use a 1.3 increasing factor, those aren’t real numbers. That is inflated by 30%. That’s not a fair number.

When the government is choosing not to listen to its own consultants, quantity surveyor A.W. Hooker’s numbers—that put it at $499.2 million. How come you’re not listening to your own experts in that regard?

This is just trying to make the story fit their narrative, but that doesn’t make it real.

In fairness, I had asked the Minister of Infrastructure about the buy-in or if they had had positive or negative feedback from the institutions within this, and the government has said, by and large, there was buy-in or there wasn’t pushback, except for some. But we don’t know what the “some” is. We don’t know who. We don’t know what their concerns are, because that’s not for us to know.

It might be interesting for you to circle back to the folks in Ottawa and ask them how they feel about privatization; how they like seeing their money, public dollars, go to these private consortiums, the P3s; and how they feel about accountability and transparency in provincial assets.

The optimization, centralization, modernization, all of that—tell me what that looks like for the taxpayer. All of these fabulous gems in our community, Science North, the Royal Ontario Museum, the science centre, Public Health Ontario, Ontario convention centre corporation—all of these, when people walk in, what is it that they’re going to see and measure that they’re going to be like, “Oh, my God. Thank goodness the government centralized the optimizable modernness”?

What are you talking about? We don’t want word salad. We want value for our tax dollars. We want investment in our gems. That’s what we want. Show us what that looks like.