Ontario legislature eyes full shutdown for major renovations; likely to cost over $1B
CTV
The 'hazardous and severely deficient' infrastructure at the Ontario legislature has members and officials eyeing a full decommissioning of the building for large-scale renovations and moving the business of governing elsewhere for about eight years.
At 130 years old, Ontario's legislature is showing its age.
There are lead pipes and asbestos running through the walls, mountains of old cables and wires stacked on top of new ones, an inefficient steam heating system with parts that frequently fail and fire safety systems in need of upgrading.
The "hazardous and severely deficient" infrastructure has members and officials of the legislature eyeing a full decommissioning of the building for large-scale renovations and moving the business of governing elsewhere for about eight years.
That's similar to the project underway in Parliament's Centre Block in Ottawa, and members of an Ontario legislative committee were set to travel to that city on Thursday to hear any lessons learned or best practices from officials there.
A report is underway to determine exactly what work is needed, but it is clear it will not come cheap, said Legislative Affairs Minister Paul Calandra.
"It's certainly not going to cost less than a billion dollars," he said in an interview.
The vast scale of repairs and upgrades needed in the stately old legislature known as Queen's Park has been discussed on an increasingly urgent basis for the past several decades, with options on the table such as shutting it down block by block for the construction work.
