Ontario Science Centre. Photo by James Brittain, courtesy Moriyama Teshima Architects
On Thursday, July 11, Infrastructure Ontario doubled down on its unfounded claims that closing the Ontario Science Centre was necessary, and that repairs to the Science Centre will cost $478 million dollars. In documents released that day, and in the Premier’s remarks earlier in the week, the Province suggests that besides the roof, there is a series of urgent, cost-prohibitive repair issues with the building.
But once again, the actual documents it offers to support these claims tell a different story: one that, like the falsely urgent roof repairs, constitutes a manufactured crisis.
The specific problems the government pointed to in its presentation on Thursday are, for the most part, either known issues or relatively minor issues that can be easily and cost-effectively resolved. The documents issued on Thursday continue to indicate that full closure was unnecessary, and that the cost of repairs is around $200 million over 20 years?less than half what the government claims.
The government provided three key documents on July 11, only one of which provided truly new information.
The first document, a peer review of the Rimkus engineering report, was conducted by VanBoxmeer & Stranges. It agreed with Rimkus’ assessment of the roof, including its suggested approach to immediately addressing the handful of RAAC roof panels designated as being in Critical and High risk categor...