Edward Keenan: Doug Ford’s absurdly bad Ontario Place plan is the perfect issue for the mayoral campaign — except for one thing
It was obvious when the proposal for Ontario Place was first unveiled, even more obvious after aon it that will be considered at city hall next week: the provincial plan to raze a mature forest, privatize a huge swath of waterfront public land, and put a private spa and water park where a public park is now has all the makings of an epic, generation-defining mistake for Toronto.
Because Porter airlines has launched since then and most people like the boutiquey convenience of it fine, it’s hard to remember how symbolically important opposition to the expansion proposal became: Miller was campaigning against backroom deals that benefitted moneyed, connected interests and this was an example of one; he was campaigning for an environmentally sound city development process and jets on the waterfront were an example of the opposite; he was campaigning on public...
If Doug Ford’s bullying of Toronto as a city, his cosy connections to private developers and corporate interests, and the sense that he doesn’t give a fig about our environment are core concerns for many Torontonians, then this deal epitomizes all of them. In a city where the streets are full of potholes, the garbage bins are overflowing, the parks cannot keep the restrooms open, where bus service is being scaled back and where the tab for the accumulated backlog for maintenance of city infrastructure runs to 11 digits, what could better represent the slow death by neglect many people feel their once-proud city is undergoing?
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