Since the Ford Government announced the sudden closure of the Ontario Science Centre last June 21, it has taken the rhetorical line that it wanted to keep the beloved, iconic Moriyama building in operation until the new Science Centre at Ontario Place opens, but the recent discovery of decay in the roof forced it to change its plan. And, as a stopgap, it is looking for a location to open a temporary Science Centre.

A Counternarrative

From the outset, I’ve been skeptical of this narrative. My counternarrative is that as soon as the Ford Government decided to move the Science Centre to Ontario Place, which may have been as early as 2020, it was contemplating quickly closing the Don Mills location.

Elsa Lam, editor of Canadian Architect magazine, has revisited the documents provided in support of the Government’s business case for moving the Science Centre, and has found one that supports the counternarrative.

The Very Last Page

There were 333 pages of appendices to the business case that was released last November. The very last page of the appendices, designated Appendix Q, presents something called “Option 1A: Decant to Alternate Space.”

At the outset, I take issue with the metaphorical use of the word “decant” in the title. Decant means to pour a liquid from one bottle to another without disturbing the liquid itself (for wine, without disturbing the sediment). The unnamed author(s) of the document are saying that the content of the Science Centre – its exhibits and its culture – could be moved from a building designed for the purpose to some random space without affecting their quality. This would happen while there are, according to the document, “staffing reductions resulting in surplussing.” This metaphorical decanting is entirely implausible, and it is far more likely that the quality of the institution will be impaired, hence my title.

Ms. Lam’s blog post is a withering critique of that page, and I encourage you to read it. She argues that the government’s operating cost savings would be achieved primarily because it would not be delivering science programming, which is why the document anticipates “negative stakeholder and public reaction.” She observes there has indeed been such a reaction, but to a much greater extent than the Government anticipated. She also argues that the government underestimates the cost of establishing a temporary science centre and overestimates the costs of repairing the Moriyama building in Don Mills. She also notes that the document assumes that occupancy of the building in Don Mills would terminate on March 31, 2025. The option of “decant[ing] to alternate space” that was under consideration when this document was written assumes that the Moriyama building would be shuttered not long (nine months) after it actually was.

The Appendix is linked to a section of the business case titled “Implementation Considerations for Interim Operations” (p. 54). The section mentions that “Government may wish to retain a physical or virtual OSC presence at the existing site, at an alternative location, at pop-ups across the province or online.” The section concludes that “an alternative option that minimizes costs to Government would be to close the existing OSC earlier and prioritize a virtual province-wide presence, while the new OSC is being planned, designed, and constructed.” Here too, it is clear that the Government was considering an early closing of the Moriyama building and possibly replacing it with additional content on the Science Centre’s website. (I had a look at the Ontario Science Centre website now that neither the original building nor a temporary building are in operation, and it has precious little science content.)

Questions about Option 1A

Option 1A was included as an appendix to the business case because it provides a cost estimate of establishing a temporary centre opening in 2026. But it is obviously part of a document containing other options. That must have at least been option 1B and option 2, and there may have been several more.

The Business Case has a list of appendices that provides a bit more insight into Option 1A. It describes the author as “Infrastructure Ontario and Ministry of Tourism, Culture, and Sport” at a “CCT Presentation to MO: January 26, 2023. Therefore, this document was presented almost a year before the business case was released to the public. I did some digging online and discovered that CCT refers to the “Central Coordination Table” in Cabinet Office. I could not find out what “MO” is an acronym for. But the important thing to realize is that there was a presentation in Cabinet Office about options for the Ontario Science Centre that including shuttering the Moriyama building and “decanting” its operation to temporary space.

My conclusion is that this option was definitely in the minds of key decision makers – senior public servants and ministers – when the problems with the roof emerged last spring. I’m not saying that governments shouldn’t make contingency plans. Rather I’m saying that contingency plans may drive decisions. And I think this is what happened in this case.

I think it would be useful, if possible, to see the entire document that Option 1A is part of, to know what MO refers to, and to find out what was decided by MO after the presentation was made. I will be filing another Freedom of Information inquiry for that purpose.

My conclusion is that this piece of evidence supports my counternarrative that the Ford Government, in its hive mind, was ready and even eager to close the Moriyama Building, had a contingency plan in place to move to a temporary location, and as soon as the roof problems at the Moriyama building emerged, it triggered that plan.