Ford cites huge drop in science centre attendance, but documents paint a clearer picture

Ontario Premier Doug Ford has cited a huge drop in attendance and "run down" infrastructure at the Ontario Science Centre as part of his justification for moving the attraction from east Toronto to a redeveloped Ontario Place, but certain documents present a fuller picture.

Reports from the science centre itself show that attendance has been rebounding post-pandemic lockdowns, and small annual decreases in attendance in the years before COVID-19 are attributed to nearby construction of a provincial transit project and not having enough money for marketing.

The size of the science centre's operating grant from the Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Sport appears to have been frozen for the past 10 years, based on government expenditure estimates. Minister Neil Lumsden's office did not provide an explanation for not increasing the funding, but noted the attraction "benefits from other provincial supports" such as a capital repair and rehabilitation program.

Infrastructure Minister Kinga Surma has said a business case showed it will be more cost effective to move the science centre to Ontario Place rather than keeping it in the current location, but has so far refused to make that business case public.

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Ford has been citing a desire to modernize the facility and attract more people as reasons for the move, suggesting the centre is aging and fading from popularity.

"They're in this old, run-down building [where] the attendance is down 40 per cent," he said at a news conference this week.

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"I can look around this room and ask how many people have gone to the science centre in the last, I don't know, year, two years. One? I don't see anyone."

Those comments were uncalled for, said NDP infrastructure critic Jennifer French.

"Since COVID I know people are eager to get out and into their public spaces and give their kids something to do and the science centre has always been a favourite, so painting it in a negative light is kind of mean-spirited and unfounded," she said.

Ford later clarified that the attendance drop was 30 per cent, and his office said that figure comes from comparing 2012-13 figures to 2022-23. The decrease, however, is about 10 per cent when comparing 2012-13 to 2018-19, the last year unaffected by the pandemic.

Coming out of most of the pandemic lockdowns, on-site attendance for 2021-22 was 255,347 — well exceeding the centre's target of 142,078 for that year, according to its annual report for that year, the most recent one available.

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