The government is expected to make a significant announcement about the future of Ontario Place soon.

Tell decision-makers that you want a say in what happens to Ontario Place. 

Ontario Place must remain a  free, open and accessible waterfront park for everyone to use and enjoy. This is a 155-acre waterfront park on the edge of Ontario’s Great Lake. As our city grows, we will need more places for people to gather and ways for people to access great green spaces. We won’t get another chance to do this right.

Act now to protect the future of Ontario Place as a place for all.

Committee meetings have been conducted in the back room, with no public knowledge or say. Make the proposals public and get Doug Ford to be transparent with his agenda and the proposed plans for Ontario Place. The province should be working directly with the city instead of keeping us in the dark about its future.

One of the lessons we have learned from COVID is the critical importance parks and open space play in stopping the spread of the virus. They are a needed outlet for people working from home, and one of the few places where we all can, at a safe distance, meet our friends. Their importance can be seen daily by the numbers of people gravitating to our parks, including Ontario Place. With the possibility of more pandemics in the future, now is not the time to reduce access to one of the biggest and most attractive urban parks Ontario has to offer.

ONTARIO PLACE & TRILLIUM PARK - Where land meets water
The 155-acre site is a free and accessible park that serves adjacent communities, including Parkdale, Liberty Village, the cluster around Fort York and beyond, with amenities that engage visitors to the waterfront.

Ontario’s new urban forest, designed by Walter Kehm and others, consists of native tree and shrub species creating a natural landscape for relaxation and exploration. Indigenous plant species are incorporated into the landscape, along with other indigenous designs, providing a place for people to reflect on the native land they're walking upon.

At the western point, just a little farther on, some of the best sunsets in the city can be viewed as it goes down behind the new skyline of the Etobicoke Riviera. People wander through the rest of Ontario Place, too, finding patches of grass or space in the plazas, with multiple outdoor activities to choose from, including beach volleyball courts, skateboard park, ping-pong tables, and chess tables. The drive-in set up last summer in the “Echo Beach” concert area was also a big hit, as was the winter festival of lights in recent years. Take a walk around that perimeter path and see for yourself.

The Potential
Original structures like the Cinesphere, the pods that float over the water and other assorted Space Age buildings are spectacular and unique to Toronto. The original buildings need new, thoughtful public uses and innovative business ideas, but the well-used oasis that Ontario Place is today must be respected with a delicate touch. 

Ontario Place is one of those sites that are both important locally and also belong to people far and wide. People across Ontario have connections to and memories of the place, and it needs a second life.

There’s lots of potential for something great here, but the province has to be more transparent with the city and consult with the people who will use it every day.

Heritage Site
In 2019, the city council unanimously voted to “list” Ontario Place on the city’s heritage register, saying it “remains a rare and intact Modernist expression of integrated architecture, engineering and landscape architecture that honours and incorporates the natural setting; of Lake Ontario.”

In 2014, the Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Sport’s extensive heritage study declared Ontario Place a “cultural heritage landscape of provincial significance.” However, the web page with the study was scrubbed when the ministry, under the Ford government, opened a bidding process to redevelop the site in 2019. Later that year, the World Monument Fund put Ontario Place on its most at-risk cultural heritage sites.

Here are some other ways that you can help ensure that it is a future that includes all of us:

• Send a letter to Premier Ford, Minister MacLeod and Mayor Tory demanding that the public and heritage values of the site be respected.
• Share your ideas for Ontario Place on Twitter and Instagram. Tweet your favourite Ontario Place memory.
• Watch for Minister MacLeod’s announcement later this month and see if it respects the core principles developed by Ontario Place for All, The Future of Ontario Place and the Architectural Conservancy of Ontario.
• Ontario Place must be for ALL and kept publicly accessible.
• There must be a thoughtful, comprehensive public review before any changes, with a full and robust public consultation that:
  • Conforms to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Report’s call for informed, respectful and meaningful consultation with Indigenous peoples over economic development,
    recognizes the diverse communities that use and contribute to Ontario Place.
  • Public interest, not commercial interest, must drive the new vision.
  • Plans must:
    • Acknowledge the waterfront’s Indigenous heritage and incorporate meaningful Indigenous consultation.
      Maintain Ontario Place as part of Toronto’s waterfront park system.
      Be integrated with the revitalization of Exhibition Place.
      Celebrate Ontario.
    • Be guided by a collaboratively developed Conservation Management Plan that sustains Ontario Place as a recognized cultural heritage landscape.

For more information, visit https://ontarioplaceforall.com/category/news/