Ontario Place in Toronto on Nov. 3, 2023.Chris Young/The Canadian Press
Ontario NDP Leader Marit Stiles has asked the legislature’s Integrity Commissioner to probe the province’s deal to lease much of its Ontario Place site on Toronto’s waterfront to a private spa operator, alleging that a pledge to build a taxpayer-funded parking garage for the facility amounts to “preferential treatment.”
On Thursday, Ms. Stiles released a nine-page affidavit and 1,000 pages of supporting documents, calling for an investigation into whether Infrastructure Minister Kinga Surma violated the provisions in Ontario’s Members’ Integrity Act on conflict-of-interest and the sharing of inside information. The legislation, which governs MPPs, prohibits decisions that “improperly … further another person’s private interest.”
In a cover letter addressed to Integrity Commissioner J. David Wake, Ms. Stiles singles out the decision to provide the spa company, the Canadian arm of Austria-based Therme Group, the “private benefit of dedicated publicly funded parking facilities” even though other bidders for the site were “explicitly warned” that proposals requiring taxpayer cash would not be considered.
The Progressive Conservative government’s 95-year lease with Therme, released earlier this month, guarantees 1,600 dedicated parking spots for the spa and waterpark, at a construction cost estimated in the hundreds of millions.
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“The evidence suggests that Therme received preferential treatment, and its private interests were improperly furthered, as a result of decisions for which Minister Kinga Surma is ultimately responsible,” Ms. Stiles writes in her complaint.
Premier Doug Ford’s move to allow Therme to build a $500-million waterpark and spa on the grounds of Ontario Place, a former amusement park, has faced vehement opposition from local politicians and activists who say the entire area should instead be turned into public parkland. Critics have also objected to the relocation of the Ontario Science Centre to the site.
The project is already being investigated in a value-for-money audit by the province’s Auditor-General.
In an e-mailed statement, Ms. Surma pointed out she was not yet Infrastructure Minister when the bid process launched. She also lashed back at Ms. Stiles.
“Unlike the Opposition Leader, I have too much respect for the Commissioner to play politics with his office,” Ms. Surma said.
Therme Canada said in a statement that it had followed all of the government’s rules.
Both the Integrity Commissioner and the province’s then-auditor-general last year issued damning reports on the government’s now-withdrawn plan to allow a select group of developers windfall profits from building housing on parts of the protected Greenbelt, a move that remains under RCMP investigation.
The office of Mr. Wake, whose enforcement powers are largely limited to recommending that the legislature vote to reprimand or suspend an MPP, confirmed on Thursday that it was reviewing Ms. Stiles’s Ontario Place complaint.
In her affidavit, the NDP Leader notes that in the “call for development” the government issued in May, 2019, bidders were told that it was not a “formal competitive bidding process.” The government reserved the right to enter into talks with one or more bidders, or to select a firm that did not even submit a bid at all. However, Ms. Surma has repeatedly described it as a “competitive” process, the complaint says.
The Globe and Mail has previously reported that the PC government’s call for development process mirrored a similar one run by the Liberals under former premier Kathleen Wynne that had also landed on Therme as a front-runner. But time ran out for negotiations with the company, as Ms. Wynne’s 2018 election defeat loomed.
With a report from Laura Stone