Raves, weddings, and field trips: GTA residents share memories of shuttered Ontario Science Centre

A rave at the Ontario Science Centre was the place where Greg LeBlanc says his relationship first began with his husband Mark in 1997.

A rave at the Ontario Science Centre was the place where Greg LeBlanc says his relationship first began with his husband Mark in 1997.

The semi-annual events, which were a short-lived novelty for the family-oriented museum, drew massive crowds, LeBlanc told CP24.com.

“I think it would bring in about 1,000 people or so,” he said.

At that time, he said it was now-mayor Olivia Chow, who served as a city councillor between 1992 and 2005, leading the charge to bring raves into more safe spaces.

“The science centre was really trying to find ways to program new sorts of events that were maybe for different people other than young families or children,” LeBlanc said.

“I think that was just a revenue stream that they were looking for but also in Toronto in the late nineties, there were a lot of sort of underground raves that were not legal… so that really was the beginning of rave or party culture and sort of club kids being brought into sanctioned, policed places in public.”

In the fall of 1997, he said he was out celebrating a friend’s birthday at a downtown nightclub when he met his husband, who worked as a bouncer at the bar.