Ford government spent more than a week planning ‘end-of-day’ science centre closure
Global News
The science centre was closed just hours after an announcement on Friday, June 21. The rush, the government, was due to the urgent safety issues plaguing the building.
The Ford government’s controversial decision to permanently close the Ontario Science Centre was made at least one week before employees and the public were informed, Global News has learned, raising questions over why it was shuttered so urgently at the beginning of the summer.
The science centre was fenced off from the public and closed just hours after an announcement on Friday, June 21. The rush, the government said at the time, was due to the urgent safety issues plaguing the building.
Internal emails obtained through freedom of information laws, however, reveal that the province began working on the plan to close the structure and sell its key message to the public at least 10 days before the announcement was made.
A trove of emails between government communication staff and senior Infrastructure Ontario officials show that a news release announcing the sudden closure was being prepared as early as June 11, while a plan to fence off the building was greenlit on June 17.
The Ministry of Infrastructure has repeatedly stated that the closure was necessary due to the risk posed by panels in the roof of the Ontario Science Centre.
The premier’s office told Global News that the government announced the closure once “mitigation measures” like alternative summer camp plans were in place. They said the announcement was made as quickly as possible after the engineering report was sent to the government.
“When the final report was delivered, the shutdown happened as soon as it was feasible to do so, only a few days later,” the premier’s office said.
Emails and attachments obtained by Global News show a version of the government’s announcement was being prepared more than a week before the closure, as staff with both the Ministry of Infrastructure and Infrastructure Ontario poured over the details of how to present the plan.
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