Sameer Sayed outside the Ontario Science Centre on June 30.Sammy Kogan/The Globe and Mail
Kat Gligorijevic was 11 years old when she crossed the pedestrian bridge at the Ontario Science Centre for the first time in 1989. At first glance, the concrete structure, which dipped into a Toronto ravine of rambling woods, seemed unremarkable. But, walking through the bridge, along its windowed wall, felt like stepping from the ordinary world into a futuristic microcosm.
“You see all this nature outside. Then once you go into the exhibit area, it felt infinitely large … like it was possible to get lost and always end up in a new place,” she says. “It felt magical.”
Two decades later, she’d walk through that same bridge with her son, Sasha, before watching his amazement at the hair-raising Van de Graaff generator or the small dial that lets you zoom between the atomic and galactic levels in seconds. Countless hours spent learning and playing reignited his spark for biology, math, and physics, which had been “snuffed out” at school, said Ms. Gligorijevic.
The abrupt closing of the Ontario Science Centre late last month has struck a nerve with parents and community members such as Ms. Gligorijevic, prompting an outpouring of anger, petitions and protests. Beyond losing a space housing treasured childhood memories, parents lost an institution that ignited a love of learning in their kids and made leading-edge science accessible to everyone.
Children who were registered for the centre’s popular summer camps and academic programs will instead be provided with another space, though their families will see fees refunded even if they attend. The Science Centre expects parents to receive refunds this week. A school that operated out of the centre has also been cancelled for the 2024-25 academic year.
Mr. Sayed and his three children, from left, Maryam, Hammaad and Rayyaan, peer through the fencing outside the Ontario Science Centre.Sammy Kogan/The Globe and Mail
In 2023, Doug Ford’s provincial government announced its intention to relocate the Ontario Science Centre from its current site in Toronto’s northeast to a much smaller waterfront lot near Ontario Place. The move is part of a broader plan to redevelop Ontario Place that also includes a $350-million waterpark and spa complex; the new science centre is slated to reopen in 2028.
However, the province shut down the centre far sooner than anyone expected on June 21, citing structural issues with the 55-year-old building’s roof that the government says would cost millions to fix. And a temporary replacement isn’t expected to open for more than a year.
“No one is saying we need to compromise on safety,” said Sameer Sayed, who lives a few blocks from the science centre with his wife and three kids. “But public consultation needs to happen before big things like this.”
He learned about the centre’s closing long before the news made rounds on social media. He saw the fences going up from the balcony of the family’s apartment in Flemingdon Park. “My daughter started crying right away … She said, ‘I’ll climb over the fence.’”
Mr. Sayed, who moved to Canada seven years ago from India, has visited the science centre with his family at least once every two months. With pride, he says they’ve seen no less than 30 movies at the centre’s theatre – the last one being Backyard Wilderness, about the vast ecosystems right under our noses. Four days later, the building was closed.
While the whole family was devastated, Mr. Sayed said his eldest son was most affected. The 11-year-old was set to enroll in the science centre’s summer youth-for-youth (Y4Y) program next year. It introduces Grade 7 and Grade 8 students in the area to engineering concepts while developing their STEM skills through a design project.
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It is these accessible learning opportunities that Mr. Sayed mourns the most. “You can teach kids with books, but the impact with these live experiences is much more than books. … They were learning without realizing they were learning.”
He said even when the new science centre opens at Ontario Place, it won’t be as accessible, especially to immigrant families such as his who live near the existing location. “The people here are almost all immigrants, many don’t have a vehicle. … They’d be going through TTC and all that traffic to a place with space for half the exhibits.”
Rosemary Quinsey, whose six-year-old son was registered to attend the Ontario Science Centre Summer Camp in July, said it would take driving to Ottawa or Montreal to provide him with the same learning opportunities.
“There’s nothing else like it here – it was the highlight of his summer,” she said. “They got to spend the week learning and making things. … He built a human body out of all these different materials. … It was so hands-on.”
Tall fencing, signage and security block off the entire property.Sammy Kogan/The Globe and Mail
Ms. Quinsey can’t say for sure that regular visits to the science centre in the 1980s were the reason most of her siblings pursued careers in STEM disciplines of science, technology, engineering and math. But she can speculate that the trips ignited their love for science. “We went all the time; there were four kids, and three of them work in tech now,” she said.
“My kids should have more opportunities than me – not less,” she said. “Toronto is a world-class city, and we shouldn’t have to travel out of province to get these educational opportunities.”
The City of Toronto has estimated repairs to the existing science centre building would cost roughly $106-million in the short term and $478-million over the next 20 years.
But Sandford Borins, professor emeritus at the Rotman School of Management, said a big reason for the costly repairs is that the province has intentionally let the building fall apart. “The Ford government, from 2020 on, envisioned the science centre being moved to Ontario Place. … They didn’t allocate any costs to it.”
Mr. Borins has vivid memories of visiting the science centre with his kids in the early 2000s. So when he heard about Mr. Ford’s intention to close it, he decided to pay another visit last January.
Time had taken its toll: There were outdated posters advertising “the year at NASA” (the year being 2018), tons of empty floorspace, and nothing about the upcoming eclipse – a missed opportunity, he said.
But the biggest disappointment was the closed pedestrian bridge. “Shutting down the bridge totally reversed the flow of the building – it split it in two,” said Mr. Borins. Its closing in 2022 owing to structural issues seemed a premonition of what was to come.
Beyond the shock of it being gone, what hurt Ms. Gligorijevic most was that she and her son, as well as hundreds of other families, did not get a chance to have a formal farewell. “It didn’t sound like it needed to be closed so abruptly that we wouldn’t have a chance to say goodbye.”
With a report from The Canadian Press
Share your memories of the Ontario Science Centre
After the Ontario Science Centre abruptly closed in June, the outpouring of anecdotes from Canadians who had visited the institution was immediate, from eye-opening childhood field trips to the amazement of touching the hair-raising Van de Graaff generator. Do you have a memory from the Science Centre you want to share? Add your story here or email it to audience@globeandmail.com.