The minister’s timeline keeps changing, and that’s what happens when you make major infrastructure decisions in the shadows and the backrooms.

The government had already decided on this plan more than a year and a half before they announced that Therme won the contract. The documents we uncovered appeared to show the undisclosed attraction plan for Ontario Place has the exact same footprint as Therme’s proposal—quite a coincidence.

So, Speaker, did the government give preferential treatment to Therme for its luxury spa proposal?

Last year, the Premier confirmed that his family friend Carmine Nigro was negotiating a mysterious sole-source agreement with Ontario Live. Ontario Live happens to be run by another family friend, Zlatko Starkovski. What is the relationship between the secret Ontario Live agreement and the secret phase 2 plan for Ontario Place?

People shouldn’t have to make freedom-of-information requests to find out about a major infrastructure project happening with their money. People shouldn’t need a chart of the Premier’s friends and family to find out who is securing sole-source contracts.

We need this Premier and this minister to come clean about this project. So to what extent were these deals made to benefit the Premier and his personal friends?

How can this shady deal proceed considering this government is already under investigation by the RCMP?

Interjections.

Good morning. This question is for the Premier. Speaker, the closer you look at the government’s Ontario Place scheme, the worse it gets. Yesterday, we revealed a previously unknown phase 2 of the project that even involves a plan to fill in parts of Lake Ontario to build a “large-scale entertainment centre.” While the minister tried to brush this off, she didn’t directly deny it.

So, I want to hear from the Premier: Does he plan to fill in parts of Lake Ontario for this vanity project, yes or no?

Yesterday, the minister said over and over and over again that the government only plans to move the science centre to Ontario Place. They only came up with that plan in 2023. Today, the official opposition is sharing more documents that show the plans to relocate the science centre were already in motion in January of 2020. That’s three full years before the plans were announced to the public.

We need some transparency from the Premier today. When exactly did the government decide to move the science centre, and why did they hide it from the public?

What they are is a shady government under investigation by the RCMP. That’s what they are, and we won’t forget it.

Speaker, we now know that the Premier has been secretly planning to pave over a portion of Lake Ontario for more than three years. He pushed for a secret deal to hand over public land to a private luxury spa operator for 95 years—95 years. Who does that? Then he changed environmental and integrity laws just to force through his personal vanity project. If that doesn’t smell bad, I don’t know what does.

To the Premier: What are the real plans for Ontario Place, and which of the Premier’s insider friends are set to benefit?

Interjections.

J’aimerais reconnaître qu’aujourd’hui nous célébrons la Journée internationale de la Francophonie. Alors, bonne journée de la Francophonie, tout le monde.

My question is for the Premier. The NDP has unearthed new documents revealing plans for a phase 2 of the Ontario Place redevelopment that, for some reason, this government kept secret from Ontarians. We know what phase 1 is. That’s the backroom deal where government, we know, is spending hundreds of millions of public dollars and handing over public land to a private luxury spa company for 95 years. But what is phase 2 and why has the government kept it a secret from Ontario?

My question is, when was the Premier going to tell the public his secret plan to pave over Lake Ontario?

The whole Ontario Place redevelopment scheme has been cloaked in secrecy from the beginning. The Premier won’t tell the public the terms of the 95-year lease that they have with Therme. Time and again, the only reason why we know anything about this government’s real intentions is because of our own investigative work.

I would like to know, on behalf of Ontarians: What else is the Premier keeping secret from the people of Ontario?

I’m going back to the Premier. Late last year, the government jammed through a bill that would exempt all undertakings at Ontario Place from the Environmental Bill of Rights and from the Environmental Assessment Act. Did the Premier change the laws to try and get away with his secret plan to pave over Lake Ontario?

The Premier—I will remind you, Speaker—jammed through a bill that would allow the government to ignore the provincial laws when it comes to Ontario Place. I remind the members here that the bill even lets the government commit acts of misrepresentation, misfeasance, breach of trust and bad faith without any consequences, and this is the same government under RCMP criminal investigation for another scandal.

I wonder why they passed that bill. Did the Premier jam through this wildly irresponsible bill because he knew that his secret plans for Ontario Place would not survive public scrutiny or judicial review?

Interjections.

Speaker, earlier this week, the government shut down our motion to cancel the really sketchy Ontario Place deal. You’ll remember this deal will see more than $600 million of hard-earned public funds subsidize the private profits of an Austrian spa developer for 95 years. You’ll remember that the people of this province do not support this deal.

The deal makes no sense. What could possibly justify this unprecedented giveaway of prime waterfront property and hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to Therme? Maybe we should ask Carmine Nigro, chair of Ontario Place and a close personal friend of the Premier.

My question to the Premier is, what would we find on his personal phone about the Ontario Place deal?

The appointment of people whose only qualification seems to be a big enough donation to the Conservative Party calls into question the competence and integrity of vital services like the Landlord and Tenant Board and the Human Rights Tribunal. The people of Ontario want to know, and so do I: How many of these unqualified appointees would we find on the Premier’s personal phone logs?

The member from Waterloo is right: This is indefensible.

They now have a criminal investigation at their door. We can’t trust a word they say. They have to show us the papers. They need to open the books, because the people of this province deserve answers. So I ask: Why won’t the Minister of Infrastructure show us the business case that she says showed it was more expensive to renovate the Ontario Science Centre than build a new one at Ontario Place?

Interjection.

Will the Premier and his government leave Ontarians on the hook to pay for something for the next 100 years that they never wanted in the first place? Should the Therme spa fail, what happens then? Can this foreign company do what they want on our public lands? Is this another shady deal that’s tapping into the public coffers of this province to benefit private interests? I’ll tell you, it has all the makings of one.

Speaker, I want to end by saying that the last thing this government needs is another criminal investigation. That’s why we, in the official opposition NDP, are asking this government to just cancel this ridiculous deal; get realistic about revitalizing this important public land, this important waterfront; keep it public; and stop this pattern of handing out secret backroom deals to corporations over the public interest. Will they step out on the right side of governance today and pass our motion?

We know. But if they really want to see this spa built, then the city of Toronto mayor, Oliva Chow, has graciously proposed an alternative: the Better Living Centre, which would also, I think, perhaps be a better fit.

All the people of this province want to know is, how much is this really going to cost them? The official opposition NDP care as well about public accountability for their hard-earned tax dollars.

But Ontarians also want to know why, since 2018—that’s five years of this Premier’s government—an annual report for Ontario Place has not been published once, not once—all of a sudden, no published reports. They’ve kept secret how much revenue has been brought in from tenants like Live Nation or expenses that Ontario Place has incurred during this time. These reports are supposed to be published around the same time as public accounts every year. Ontario Place Corp.’s financial results are consolidated annually by the government of Ontario. Let me be clear what that means: This government knows. They know, but they aren’t going to tell us. Why? Why is this government so bent on hiding facts and the truth from the very people who pay their salaries, from the very people who will be paying for this absolutely nonsense deal? We see absolutely no transparency, no responsibility from this government, and I think the people of Ontario are asking, “What are they hiding?”

We’ve got them under investigation by the RCMP right now for a deal that was bad—a bad deal. I want to say, the people of this province have said enough is enough. They want to know what this Premier has signed them up for, why he won’t release the terms of the 95-year lease of our public lands, our waterfront, that he is gifting to a private foreign company. Why the secrecy?

The questions just keep coming. Who stands to benefit? Who stands to benefit from this backroom deal? Because it certainly isn’t the people of Ontario. This deal shows us that, once again, insiders are everywhere when it comes to this government. I’ll let you connect the dots, Speaker.

We have Mark Lawson, Therme Canada’s highest-profile executive, who worked in Premier Ford’s office and, guess what, before that, as chief of staff for the Minister of Finance. Then there’s Edward Birnbaum, a new hire announced about a week ago, who came from—also a friend of the Premier—Mayor John Tory’s staff. Finally, there’s Simon Bredin, a Therme spokesperson, who has worked formerly for Navigator, connected to the Conservative Party. Spacing magazine has noted that Therme’s top strategy consultant is John Perenack, another Conservative Party insider whose clients have included EllisDon, the general contractor for the Ontario Place site services replacement project.

Through freedom-of-information requests and questions before the legislative committee, the NDP has learned that there was no fairness monitor for the Ontario Place procurement. I want to remind the people of Ontario: This is standard practice for large procurements, because it’s there to ensure fairness and integrity. Why wasn’t there a fairness monitor?

The government has also been unable to show any scoring criteria used to assess the bids, or the scorecards for each bid. Without the scorecards, we don’t have any way of knowing whether the contract was awarded based on evidence or preferential treatment. Preferential treatment, Speaker: I suspect that’s going to be the real issue here.

Journalist John Lorinc—who, I think, actually is a resident of my riding, a constituent—was writing for Spacing magazine, and he found that the procurement process “lacked ... detail about project financing and public information on other proposals for the site.” I wanted to quote him here. He’s an award-winning journalist, and he writes, “What’s more—and this seems like a highly salient detail—the 38 other bidders were told, in the Call for Development document, that the site had adequate parking, and that they should fashion their proposals accordingly. It was only after the government (via Infrastructure Ontario) selected Therme that it announced the construction of a massive five-level parking garage—an unambiguous commercial benefit to Therme that was never made available to the other bidders.”

Speaker, none of this looks right. It doesn’t sound right. It doesn’t smell right. This government is tanking in trust and accountability—

Mr. Speaker, I’m pleased for us to be able to debate the following motion:

Whereas Ontario Place is public property intended for the public benefit; and

Whereas there has been no meaningful public consultation on how Ontario Place should be developed; and

Whereas there is evidence to suggest that the bidding process gave an unfair advantage to specific companies and there was no fairness monitor in place to oversee the process; and

Whereas the government has refused to release details of the reported 95-year lease for a private spa; and

Whereas the government is spending at least $650 million of public money to provide private benefits for the spa; and

Whereas people are experiencing an affordability crisis and feeling the impacts of this government’s cuts to health care, education and housing;

Therefore, the Legislative Assembly calls on the government to terminate the lease with Therme Canada and stop the transfer of public funds to private profits.

Mr. Speaker, I’d like to tell this government how the people of Ontario are doing. They’re deeply struggling. The relentless rise in the cost of living, housing, rent, mortgages, groceries and gas is forcing Ontarians to make very tough choices. They’re making meal choices depending on what grocery items are on sale.

And while Ontarians are stressed about how they’re going to stretch their paycheque till the end of the month, or whether renoviction and potential homelessness is around the corner for them, in these tough financial times, what we have is a Premier and a government who are busy trying to get a luxury spa built on public land in downtown Toronto. I’m talking about the Premier’s illogical plan for Ontario Place and what he believes is—I want to quote him here—a “bold vision.” That’s the Premier’s own words, not mine—definitely not mine. Let me tell you, there is nothing bold about a plan that is handing hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer money to a private company for a luxury spa that most people will not even be able to afford, because most people right now are struggling to afford the basic necessities of life. The only thing that’s bold about this plan is how arrogantly this government is steamrolling over a public park, ignoring the interests of Ontarians and blatantly disregarding taxpayers.

Speaker, just like with the greenbelt, the official opposition won’t stop asking questions until this government gives us and the people of this province some answers and until trust and transparency and accountability are returned to Queen’s Park. In this effort, the official opposition NDP has asked the provincial Auditor General to conduct a compliance investigation and value-for-money audit of the government’s plans. We also submitted a freedom-of-information request to Infrastructure Ontario to get answers for Ontarians—answers and transparency this government has been denying the people of this province.

Today, I can reveal that the Ontario NDP has obtained documents Infrastructure Ontario provided that contain mounting evidence of a rigged process for the Ontario Place redevelopment—a rigged process that ultimately saw this public parkland handed over to Therme. These documents, Speaker, include a parking study from Infrastructure Ontario from January 2021, and that mentions Therme and its half-billion-dollar parking garage nearly two years before the public even knew about it. It suggests that the Premier gifted a publicly funded, half-billion-dollar parking garage to Therme and hid it from the public for nearly two years and throughout an entire election. That’s half a billion dollars of Ontarians’ money spent on an elite luxury spa while people were pleading—pleading, Speaker—for investment in emergency rooms in this province and schools. The greenbelt smelled bad from the very beginning and so does this one.

Ontarians know a bad deal when they see one. That’s why we banded together to stop the greenbelt grab in its track. Now we are looking at a government that is under criminal investigation by the RCMP. Madam Speaker, if the Premier has nothing to hide, then why won’t they give us more details of the rushed and secretive deal that this government has cut with Therme, a private European company? The Ontario NDP is committed to making sure that this land is publicly accessible not just today, but in perpetuity.

We’ve learned through recent media reports—through the media, but not, by the way, through this government, despite many, many requests—that Minister Surma was informed by Carmine Nigro, chair of Ontario Place Corp.—and, by the way, I want to point out again, a major donor and a friend of the Premier’s and a donor to this party, but also somebody that not only is the chair of Ontario Place, but was made the chair of the LCBO because, you know, one’s not good enough. That site had 2.8 million visitors in 2022. That’s according to Carmine Nigro, the chair of Ontario Place Corp.: 2.8 million visitors in 2022. They turned a record profit.

You know what? I checked. That’s actually almost on par with the number of visitors to the Statue of Liberty in a year. That’s no small thing. So why is it that Minister Surma never shared these numbers with the public? Why did she instead choose to keep Ontarians in the dark and insist that Ontario Place is not enjoyed by not just Torontonians, but by Ontarians? The people of this province are being kept in the dark about what this deal is costing them. They’re being kept in the dark about the facts of who goes and how many visitors go to Ontario Place. And let me tell you that the number of what this deal is costing the people of this province keeps on growing.

Initial estimates put taxpayers on the hook for $650 million for the parking garage—a parking garage—but also, yes, I’ll grant you, for some site preparation. But we’re now seeing that that is a low estimate. It appears that taxpayers are also going to be on the hook for the upgraded water and sewer systems to fill this private luxury spa’s pools and to treat their sewage water.

Commercial property in downtown Toronto sells for approximately $200 per buildable square foot. With 700,000 square feet, that means the West Island at Ontario Place is worth about $1.4 billion. Not only is this government handing over this prime, valuable, public parkland to an Austrian corporation for free, they’re also giving this corporation hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer money. We, the official opposition, want this project and this sketchy deal cancelled.

My NDP colleague and our infrastructure critic, Jennifer French, has asked the minister and the Premier some really tough questions about their Therme project and the details, and their response has only been, “Just trust us.” I’m going to tell you, “Just trust us” isn’t going to cut it with Ontarians. Ontarians need to know how much of their hard-earned tax dollars are going to a private company to make this luxury spa so that rich people can get expensive massages. The Premier has asserted that there’s no taxpayer money on the line. Well, I really wish that were so—I really do—but it is not going to be the case.

I just want to point out, Speaker, while we’re on the topic, that we are seeing a troubling pattern of this government’s obsession with massages.

Interjection.

Maybe it would be helpful if I explained a little bit about why that fairness monitor matters.

The NDP has learned that a few days before the bid submission deadline for the Ontario Place procurement, Infrastructure Ontario mysteriously extended the deadline by three weeks. Several bidders had already submitted their bids on time, but Therme, with its private luxury spa proposal, had not.

Speaker, to the Premier: Was the deadline extended to give Therme an advantage?

Fair procurements use scoring criteria and metrics to objectively assess each bid. Earlier this year, the NDP asked Infrastructure Ontario to provide these criteria and give us the scorecards for the Ontario Place bids. They won’t provide it. It seems there were no scoring criteria, no scorecards. If this seems familiar, well, it’s because this sounds an awful lot like the greenbelt grab.

If Therme was chosen based on fair and objective criteria, why won’t this Premier and this government release the details of the selection process?

Interjections.

The public accounts were published last week, and we got to see a detailed overview of the government’s revenue and expenses for the year. Public agencies are supposed to publish their financial statements at the same time, but, strangely, Ontario Place did not. In fact, Ontario Place has not published a single annual report since the Conservatives took office five years ago.

Speaker, to the Premier—can the Premier explain why his government is hiding the financial statements of Ontario Place?

The government doesn’t want to admit they’re hiding these, but journalists had to file freedom-of-information requests to get the 2022 financials. This government wants Ontarians to believe that Ontario Place is derelict and abandoned. The Minister of Infrastructure even told this House before that it is “not enjoyed” by Torontonians or Ontarians. But these newly released documents reveal that Ontario Place actually attracted 2.9 million visitors last year alone, just in one year, and they made a record profit. That 2.9 million visitors is almost as many visitors as the Statue of Liberty—so it doesn’t sound like tumbleweeds to me.

Back to the Premier: Why is the Premier hiding the facts about Ontario Place?

Interjections.

The NDP believes this government should be investing to get people the health care and education and housing they need, not spending $650 million on luxury spas.

Will the Premier stop the transfer of public funds into private pockets and cancel the Therme deal?

Interjections.

As the truth leaks out about this Premier’s secret 95-year deal with Therme, the worse it smells.

Normally, with a large procurement like this, Infrastructure Ontario would appoint a fairness monitor to ensure fairness and integrity. The NDP submitted a freedom-of-information request to get the fairness monitor report for the Ontario Place procurement. It turns out no such document exists.

Back to the Premier: Why wasn’t there a fairness monitor for this particular procurement?

Speaker, the circumstances around this government’s paving-over and carve-up of the greenbelt and this continued lack of transparency by the Premier means that every land use decision by this government is tainted by suspicion. That’s the fact. When the Premier muses about massive changes to provincial institutions with no evidence at all, not even pretending to have community involvement, it raises questions.

So I have to ask, Speaker—to the Premier, again—are any developers with ties to the Conservatives pushing to move the Ontario Science Centre?