Letters to the editor, June 30: ‘Let’s praise the closing of the Ontario Science Centre, and move past an old way of thinking’

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Blink of an eye

Re “Shameless spin aside, closing the Ontario Science Centre is a choice” (June 24): We moved to Toronto with our young family in 1968, the year after the Ontario Science Centre was opened. We made many trips there with our children and attended important educational events.

Everybody seems to have forgotten that it was Ontario’s main Centennial project. Most of the provinces did Canada proud: In Quebec there was Le Grand Théâtre de Québec and in Manitoba the Centennial Concert Hall, magnificent structures still in use.

Why has Ontario allowed this magnificent structure, which is so widely popular and built to commemorate the Centennial of our country, deteriorate to the point that it may be destroyed?

Joe Martin Tiny, Ont.

Let’s praise the closing of the Ontario Science Centre, and move past an old way of thinking. The era of grandiose public edifices, funded and maintained exclusively by the public purse, seems to be coming to a close.

We are all saddened that, after successive governments could not afford to maintain either the Science Centre or Ontario Place, these former crown jewels lay moribund and unserviceable. Let’s face it: Successive governments did not prioritize their maintenance.

There is reason for optimism. The plan to move the Ontario Science Centre to a reinvigorated Ontario Place, with help through public-private partnerships, would result in the reestablishment of these crown jewels for all Ontarians to enjoy for decades to come.

Roman Botiuk Toronto

It was heartbreaking to drive past the Ontario Science Centre and see it surrounded by metal fencing.

I remember many happy visits with my children. At times such as March Break, it was impossible to get near the place as carloads of families came to spend the day. When science and math teachers were tearing out their hair over how to keep their students engaged, this was a place of magic, delight and inspiration.

In the Ontario Science Centre and Ontario Place, why are we submitting to the destruction of two of our most important cultural centres, built by two of Canada’s most important architects? Why are we agreeing to the loss of public parkland into which they are so beautifully integrated? Why are we standing by (and paying the cost) while others pave paradise and put up a parking lot?

Who benefits?

Margaret Henry Toronto

In 1999, I applied (and was accepted) to complete my high-school year at the Ontario Science Centre.

The Ontario Science Centre Science School accepted students from all over the province for an enhanced curriculum that was difficult, open-ended and practical. Visitors could always recognize students by their bright-red lab coats. Many of my classmates went on to do incredible things.

I took my niece and nephew to the Ontario Science Centre just before the pandemic, and ran into a student-host wearing their lab coat. They told me their science-school experience helped them get accepted to Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

These are the outcomes being destroyed by politics. The fact that multiple provincial governments could have prevented it is a terrible shame.

Michael DiBernardo Toronto

It was so sudden and painful to hear, as I sat in my car listening to the radio, about the abrupt closing of the Ontario Science Centre.

My eyes welled up at the implied erasure of one of Toronto’s key modernist structures, so laden with cultural value and steadfast childhood memory. How do we even recover from such a governmental manoeuvre, such a sacrifice to governmental capitulation to development that destroys cultural capital and does not serve civic interests?

Such a shortsighted carving out of some of our most important civic organs, these biological units of architecture (with thanks to architect Alvar Aalto) that make up our shared civic body. They are meant to host the best of us for future generations but instead suffer one amputation after another, a reflection of margins of profit that can be bought from our governments.

Paul Petro Toronto

The abrupt announcement of the closure of the Science Centre reminds me of a local school that was closed as well for structural reasons.

Today the same building remains standing, but as a condo.

David Devine Aurora, Ont.

Closer to home

Re “Toronto pushes stubbornly ahead with a mystifying name change for Yonge-Dundas Square” (June 22): I don’t mind renaming Yonge-Dundas Square, but why pick a name that almost no one in the city knows or has heard of? Why not name it instead after an important Black Torontonian?

Perhaps William Peyton Hubbard or Thornton Blackburn, or both? “Hubbard-Blackburn Square” has a nice ring to it, and in time it might even come to be referred to as “the Hub.”

The short street along the south side of the square, currently called Dundas Square, could then be renamed Sankofa Place.

Let’s honour our own.

I. J. Shapiro Toronto

Family matters

Re “Toronto Blue Jays infielder Orelvis Martínez gets 80-game drug suspension just two days after major league debut” (Sports, June 24): The decision to suspend Orelvis Martínez should be re-examined and reversed.

Clomiphene is a drug that enhances fertility in women and men by modulating the release of gonadotropins. In men with fertility issues, this results in an increase in sperm and testosterone production to what are described in medical literature as “normal” levels, not the supraphysiological levels of androgens that increase peripheral muscle mass and performance the way androgen supplements do.

Clomiphene seems to be on the list of substances banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency simply because it raises testosterone levels, although WADA allows athletes to get a therapeutic-use exemption. It is not clear if blood tests given to Mr. Martínez assessed his “free” testosterone levels. If those levels were within the normal range, then we see absolutely no good reason for him to have been suspended.

He should be given an exemption and reinstated. Let’s play ball, fairly.

James Pfaus PhD, Prague

Kenneth Zucker PhD; editor, Archives of Sexual Behavior; Blue Jays season ticket holder; Toronto

Meet the letter-writers

Throughout the late spring and summer, The Globe will feature personal insights and missives from some of our most frequent contributors every Sunday in Letters to the Editor. Survey responses were collected as a part of the research behind A Nation’s Paper: The Globe and Mail in the Life of Canada, a collection of history essays from Globe writers past and present, coming this fall from Signal/McClelland & Stewart.

(The following responses were received by The Globe after a call for submissions in May, 2023.)

I write letters because I feel frustrated about inaction, tunnel vision, political correctness, the lack of understanding of our history, the incredibly dreadful state of our health care system, roads and infrastructure and overall partisanship.

We are not as partisan as the United States. But we had a neighbour once who worked at the U.S. embassy. He told us that what happens in the U.S. happens here, just later. That’s scary, so these tend to be the topics I write about.

I like letters that are thought-provoking, and ones that are sarcastic. Everyone needs a chuckle, and it’s always good to read opposing views. You do that well, so don’t change. But don’t be afraid to be politically incorrect, occasionally.

It’s been an interesting experience to think about why I write to you so often.

Marilyn Dolenko Ottawa

I arrived in Canada in May, 1966, and wrote my first letter to The Globe and Mail soon after. Since then, I must have written several hundred, of which scores have been published and a much larger number consigned to the trash.

I became quite excited when your e-mail arrived, thinking it was a reply to a letter I had hand-delivered to you. In that letter, I enquired whether I might write a small column, similar to that created in former years by the late, great humour columnist Richard Needham, who was a personal friend. I figured that since my letters have been published so extensively, a column, leavened by the occasional tongue-in-cheek references, jokes and anecdotes, might be acceptable fare in these days of constant bad news.

In the meantime, I hope to continue expressing my opinions in the usual way, warts and all.

Dave Ashby Toronto

I’m a grumpy old man with too much time on his hands.

I write mainly in support of contrarian ideas, which seem to get too little exposure or merely derision. Other times I write so that I can put my ire to rest and get to sleep.

I followed the rise and demise of several great letter-writers. A gentlemen with three initials and a surname I can’t remember was quite brilliant in the 1990s.

My brother David Ashby was prolific but scattered in his thoughts, and even more grumpy than me. I was pleased to see our names together on the same page in 2022.

Aside from the vanity of seeing my own name in print, I like to see what pushes other people’s buttons. Generally, the rest of the paper pushes several of mine, but I’ve only submitted two letters to the same edition once.

Len Ashby Toronto

Letters to the Editor should be exclusive to The Globe and Mail. Include your name, address and daytime phone number. Keep letters to 150 words or fewer. Letters may be edited for length and clarity. To submit a letter by e-mail, click here: letters@globeandmail.com