Now Doug Ford wants to spend “a few billion dollars” overhauling the Metro Toronto Convention Centre
The premier called the downtown facility “one of the worst convention centres anywhere in the world”
We’re old enough to remember when Premier Doug Ford unveiled the $1.04-billion architectural renderings of the new Ontario Science Centre, which is being relocated from North York to Ontario Place and is set to open in 2029. Was that only yesterday? And was it only this week that he told university students that “money doesn’t grow on trees?”
Related: After record snowfall didn’t destroy the Science Centre, some question whether it needed to close
On the same day as the Science Centre announcement, Ford set his sights on another possible monster construction job. This time, it’s the Metro Toronto Convention Centre he wants to overhaul. According to Global News, the premier said at a Toronto Region Board of Trade dinner last night that redoing the downtown facility would cost taxpayers even more.
Ford called the 442,000-square-foot building “one of the worst convention centres anywhere in the world.” He criticized the interior layout of the building and said it has a poor reputation among event organizers.
As Global points out, an Ontario auditor general report found that the convention centre had missed out on 20 opportunities to host international conventions “because the conventions had outgrown the centre.”
Ford sounds undaunted by the prospect of more significant construction. “It’ll be probably a few billion dollars, but just think of the people coming from all over the world,” he said.
Related: Olivia Chow is prepared to spend $6.2 million on Toronto’s pothole problem
Carly Lewis is a journalist whose work has appeared in the New York Times and the New York Times Magazine, Vanity Fair, Wired, Interview Magazine, Pitchfork, Elle, and Maclean’s, where she is a contributing editor. Her work has been recognized by the National Magazine Awards and the Digital Publishing Awards. She reports on city life, culture—including what people do online—politics, art and crime. She received the Dave Greber Freelance Writers Award for “The Murder of Ashley Wadsworth,” an investigative feature about a Canadian teenager who was killed by a man she met on social media, published by Maclean’s.
