In 1975, the City of New York was on the verge of bankruptcy, but President Gerald Ford refused to consider a bailout. The New York Daily News summarized the situation with a famous headline: Ford to City: Drop Dead.

Yesterday, the Ontario Auditor-General released a report that, among other things, was scathing in its criticism of the Ford Government’s plans to redevelop Ontario Place and its use of government advertising for partisan politics. But it is clear that the Government is going to ignore the report. Hence the title of this post.

Dubious Finances and a Flawed Process

The Auditor General’s report has two types of criticisms of Ontario Place. The first is that its finances are unsound, that it will cost more and return less than planned. The overall cost to the Government is projected to be $2.2 billion, or $1.8 billion more than planned. Therme, the developer of the spa, is projected to invest less than the Government claims. The cost estimate for building a new science centre at Ontario Place has now escalated to the point that it is higher than the cost of renovating the now-closed Ontario Science Centre in Don Mills. And, as I argued in my blog post about the contract with Therme Canada, the value of the rent the Government is vastly overstated because it was not discounted. When it released the contract with Therme last October, the Government claimed that it would receive $1.1 billion in rent over the life of the project. The net present value of that $1.1 billion is $163 million. The report also notes that the Government simply accepted estimates of the number of visitors by lessees, including Therme, without any attempt at independent verification. Finally, the Auditor General estimates that that Therme will break even on the project after 21 years, which is a long time. If the Auditor General’s analysis is correct, Ontario Place will turn out to be a classic white elephant.

The critique of the development process characterizes the assessment of proposals as irregular and subjective. The Auditor-General finds that political staff, including the Premier’s Office, met with bidders, even though that was against the government’s own rules. Finally, the cost estimates and set of alternatives presented to Cabinet for its decisions were inadequate.

Rejecting the Only Recommendation about Ontario Place

The Auditor-General’s report contains 19 recommendations. The Ministry of Infrastructure (MOI), which is responsible for the Ontario Place redevelopment, accepts 18 of them. But the recommendations it accepts are all about future real estate developments, and MOI’s responses are all couched in terms like “leveraging existing best practices” or developing new best practices. Two recommendations are essentially political. The report recommends that, for future Cabinet decisions, MOI “present a complete analysis of all available options to Cabinet for its review and decision-making, including all of the potential costs.” MOI “accepts this recommendation and will continue to leverage multi-channel processes to support the presentation of viable alternative options explored for decision making as is current standard practice.” Put differently, standard practice wasn’t followed for Ontario Place, but MOI says it will be in the future. However, Ontario Place is a generational project, and it is cold comfort to know standard practice will be followed for future, less significant projects.

The report also recommends that for future real estate projects “during the open period, government staff should not be in contact with participants regarding a Call for Development, or a procurement, to ensure transparency.” MOI’s response is that it “will continue to advise officials and political staff that they should conform with all prohibited contact provisions specified in solicitation documents.” A better way to ensure future compliance would have been to discipline current staff who were noncompliant.

The one recommendation that wasn’t accepted concerns the Ontario Heritage Act. The report recommends that “MOI finalize the site-wide draft 2023 Heritage Impact Assessment report and implement the mitigation measures identified, as a matter of best practice and to reduce the impact of the redevelopment on the heritage attributes of Ontario Place.” The response is curt. “MOI does not accept this recommendation and notes the site is exempt from the Ontario Heritage Act.” Last year, in the Ontario Place Redevelopment Act, the government exempted itself from the requirements of the Ontario Heritage Act, and it won’t do what it – now – isn’t required to do. Put differently, drop dead. The Ford Government is going full-bore on Ontario Place redevelopment, and the Auditor-General won’t stop it.

Political Advertising: It’s Happening Here

One of the appendices of the Auditor-General’s report is a review of government advertising. The headline is that the Ontario Government spent $104 million on advertising in fiscal 2023-24 (April 1, 2023 — March 31, 2024), which is the highest ever, and more than three times as much as the previous fiscal year. The report observes that “spending follows a wave-like pattern which correlates with Ontario’s provincial elections.” The last election was early in the 2022-23 fiscal year (June 2022), but 2023-24 is only the second year of the cycle. Doug Ford’s contemplation of an early election is an obvious explanation for this year’s break in the pattern of advertising expenses declining early in a government’s mandate. The report determines which ads have “their primary purpose as promoting the governing party.” (This would have been illegal under Government Advertising Act between 2004 and 2014, but amendments in 2014 restrict only politicians, party logos, or party colours from being included in government ads). The $43 million “let’s build Ontario” campaign with the tag-line “It’s Happening Here”, which I discussed in a recent post, is the largest campaign and was assessed as promotion of the Ontario PC Party.

Auditor, Get Stuffed

Casual empiricism, such as seeing the “It’s Happening Here” ads every 15 minutes during Buffalo Bills’ games, or every time I browse the website of Canadian media, suggests total spending will again increase in the current (2024-2025) fiscal year. That is not to mention the new advertising campaign pitched at Americans – which I will discuss in my next post.

What is to be Done?

To answer Lenin’s question: the Auditor-General has provided copious evidence of the mismanagement and inappropriate politicization by the Ford Government, and it is now up to Opposition parties to bring that to the attention of the electorate, and to the voters to act.