FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
ONTARIO PLACE PROTECTORS (OPP) SEEKS INJUNCTION AGAINST GOVERNMENT OF ONTARIO
TORONTO, JUNE 24, 2024 Ontario Place Protectors (OPP) is seeking an injunction in Ontario’s Superior Court of Justice to halt demolition at Ontario Place. The work began over the weekend, under the authority of the “Rebuilding Ontario Place Act” (ROPA) even though the Act is being challenged in court by OPP, and is awaiting a trial date.
“In spite of the matter being before the courts, the Ontario government is thumbing its nose at the courts and the public, and continuing with its “bull headed destruction,” says Catherine Nasmith, the OPP director who is signator to the injunction. “The premature destruction is a further betrayal of the public trust.”
The grounds for the challenge are that the Act is unlawful, a breach of public trust, and unconstitutional. Among other travesties, ROPA exempts the government from adhering to the Ontario Heritage Act and the Environmental Protection Act. It allows the government to ignore Ontario’s Growth Plan, the Environmental Bill of Rights, and the Provincial Policy Statement.
ROPA allows the government to destroy an internationally lauded cultural landscape – that is, both the buildings at Ontario Place and its carefully integrated landscape.
In addition, ROPA exempts Ford and his government from any liability for acts of bad faith, misfeasance, or failure to meet any fiduciary obligations.
All this is being done to construct a giant spa that no one asked for being built by a private company. There has been little public consultation – just the occasional announcement of one fait accompli or another – and no transparency. We know there is a 95-year lease, but nothing of its terms, costs, or obligations.
For more information contact
Ontario Place Protectors
c/o Eric K Gillespie K. egillespie@gillespielaw.ca 416 703 6362 

​

Ontario Place Protectors (OPP) is seeking an injunction in Ontario’s Superior Court of Justice to stop the demolition at Ontario Place that began on the site’s West Island on Sunday, June 23.
The work began under the authority of the “Rebuilding Ontario Place Act” (ROPA)—despite the Act being challenged in court by OPP, and awaiting a trial date.
“In spite of the matter being before the courts, the Ontario government is thumbing its nose at the courts and the public, and continuing with its bull-headed destruction,” said Catherine Nasmith, the OPP director who is signator to the injunction. “The premature destruction is a further betrayal of the public trust.”
According to OPP, the grounds for the challenge are that the Act is “unlawful, a breach of public trust, and unconstitutional.”

ROPA exempts the government from adhering to the Ontario Heritage Act and the Environmental Protection Act.
OPP noted that ROPA allows the government to ignore Ontario’s Growth Plan, the Environmental Bill of Rights, and the Provincial Policy Statement.
It also noted that ROPA allows the government to destroy “an internationally lauded cultural landscape,” which includes both buildings at Ontario Place and its integrated landscape.
Additionally, ROPA exempts Ford and his government from any liability for acts of bad faith, misfeasance, or failure to meet any fiduciary obligations.
OPP noted that all this is being done to build a spa and that there has been little public consultation and no transparency.

Read the full article on Canadian Architect with photos from Steven Evans. 

The legal viability of the Ford government's Ontario Place redevelopment plans will be tested early in 2024.
At least one court challenge of the plans, which include the controversial private spa and waterpark that Therme intends to build, is set to see its first action involving a judge on Jan. 9.
There hasn't been a decision made yet on when — or whether — another legal challenge that could also impact the larger redevelopment will take place. The outlook for this second separate court challenge could also be shaped early in the new year.
An injunction attempt launched by Ontario Place For All will first be weighed in on by a judge in January. The activist group opposes Therme's plan to build a private spa and waterpark on the West Island of the man-made Toronto waterfront site, instead advocating that more of the land be publicly accessible.
In late November, Ontario Place For All asked a provincial court to order that tree-clearing and other preliminary redevelopment work on the West Island be halted until the provincial government completes an environmental assessment of its impact.
Site preparation and Therme's planned spa and waterpark were exempted from an environmental assessment that the provincial government completed earlier this year.
The Impact Assessment Agency of Canada, a federal agency that carries out similar kinds of assessments and reports to Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault, determined that Therme's planned facility “is likely to cause" adverse effects to wildlife and natural habitats at Ontario Place, but that they can be mitigated by the company.
The federal agency ultimately declined to suggest to Guilbeault that it carry out a full assessment of its own, which Ontario Place For All had asked for in mid-September. The federal government revealed that Guilbeault was following the agency's recommendation in early December.
Ontario Place For All also asked the court to order Therme and the provincial government to release their lease agreement, which grants the company tenancy of the West Island land for up to 95 years, as Global News first reported. Some other terms of the lease — like a requirement for the provincial government to provide "a number of dedicated parking spaces to Therme" — were revealed in a recent report by Ontario's auditor general.
The full lease has, however, been kept under wraps. The Trillium's attempt to obtain it through Ontario's freedom-of-information system was rejected, with Infrastructure Ontario citing several legal exemptions in its decisions that include those meant to protect third-party information and the province's economic interests.
A judge will meet with representatives of Ontario Place For All and the provincial government on Jan. 9 to discuss the activist group's requests of the court and potential next steps.
In a separate request, a lawyer representing a group styling itself as Ontario Place Protectors applied on Dec. 8 for a judicial review of Bill 154, the New Deal for Toronto Act.
A majority of Progressive Conservative MPPs voted to pass the legislation on Dec. 5, the day before the provincial parliament rose for its two-and-a-half winter break from sitting. NDP, Liberal and Green MPPs voted against it. The next day, Dec. 6, Bill 154 received Royal Assent and was mostly put into force.
Bill 154 allows the provincial government to make good on its titular promise, which Premier Doug Ford and Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow announced the morning of the legislation's tabling. It essentially gives the provincial government autonomy over Ontario Place, most of which it already owns.
“It is called Ontario Place,” Chow said on Nov. 27. “The land belongs to the provincial government and we do not have the authority to stop the development. The future of Ontario Place, the debate is going to happen here at Queen’s Park and not at the municipal level.”
Chow had promised during her mayoral election campaign to fight the Ford government's Ontario Place redevelopment plans, but abandoned that pledge in exchange for the province taking responsibility for two highways plus and committing new funding to the municipality.
As part of Chow's and Ford's deal, the provincial government also agreed to move new parking that it's adding to the area to Exhibition Place, the mainland area that Ontario Place connects to.
Bill 154 exempts Ontario Place from provincial environmental assessment requirements and gives Infrastructure Minister Kinga Surma special authority over the redevelopment project, including the power to issue minister's zoning orders that could speed up construction.
The Ontario Place Protectors application seeks to have Bill 154 declared as having no effect, arguing that the legislation "does not comport with the rules of natural justice and procedural fairness... (and) the rule of law" and that it "breaches the principles of public trust." No judge has ruled on the application yet, and no hearings nor meetings have been scheduled about it.
"Taking such extraordinary powers for the particularly frivolous purpose of clearing the way for an unwanted and unnecessary spa/waterpark owned by a foreign, for-profit corporation with a still secret 95-year lease on public lands simply cannot go unchallenged," Eric Gillespie, a lawyer representing Ontario Place Protectors, said in a Dec. 8 news release about its court application.
Heading into 2024, Ford's PCs have been able to celebrate a string of wins for its Ontario Place redevelopment plans, which the provincial NDP, Liberals and Greens all oppose.
Ford's and Chow's agreement, Bill 154's passage, and Guilbeault's decision each cleared potential roadblocks to the overall project.
Another suspected test of the project that it's expected to confront next year will come from the auditor general's office. The provincial oversight office has been working on a special audit of the redevelopment plans since a few months ago.
—With files from Aidan Chamandy and Jessica Smith Cross
Read and listen to this article that was published on The Trillium. 

The Ford government has used its majority at Queen’s Park to pass two bills to fast-track the redevelopment of Ontario Place. The New Deal for Toronto Act, 2023 (Bill 154), which includes the Rebuilding Ontario Place Act, was passed in the legislature in three days without any public consultation or committee review. The acts give the Ontario Minister of Infrastructure sweeping powers to direct construction at Ontario Place, and exempt the project from the Ontario Planning Act, the Ontario Environmental Assessment Act, and the Ontario Heritage Act. It also forces the City of Toronto to sell the 16 acres it owns at Ontario Place to the province, and exempts Ontario Place from City of Toronto noise bylaws. Bill 154 also contains blanket provisions designed to shield the Ontario government from any claims for damages related to the redevelopment of Ontario Place: “no costs, compensation or damages, including for loss of revenues or loss of profit, are owing or payable to any person and no remedy, including but not limited to a remedy in contract, restitution, tort, misfeasance, bad faith, trust or fiduciary obligation, any equitable remedy or any remedy under any statute …”
Read the full article on Spacing.ca to learn more about the ongoing fight to protect Ontario Place and the implications of the Ford government's actions.

Bill 154 is at the Superior Court of Ontario awaiting trial.
For Immediate Release May 21, 2024

Ford government forges ahead anyway using the powers they gave themselves in
Bill 154 and declaring an MZO at Ontario Place

At the start of the May long weekend, the Ford government announced that the Minister of
Infrastructure was placing an enhanced MZO (eMZO) across the entire site of Ontario Place.
This is appalling, but not surprising; it is but another example of this government’s heavy-
handed approach to planning throughout the Province.

The law that allows this is currently being contested at the Superior Court of Ontario awaiting
a trial date. Before Bill 154 was given royal assent in December 2023 a legal suit was filed on
the grounds that it is “unlawful”, a “breach of the public trust” and “unconstitutional”.
The broad coalition that filed the suit is Ontario Place Protectors (OPP). We are asking that the
law be declared by the Court to be “unlawful and of no force or effect”

The government attempted to have the case dismissed in January, but on March 27th, in a
decision by Justice Myers of Divisional Court, the request was refused. Furthermore, Justice
Myers recommended that the case be moved up to the Superior Court of Ontario, which is
where it is now – awaiting a trial date

Prior to the passage of Bill 152 in December 2023, only the Minister of Municipal Affairs was
able to grant MZOs. Schedule 2 of the Bill, now known as the “Rebuilding Ontario Place Act,
2023”, gives the Minister of Infrastructure (Kinga Surma) authority to place an “enhanced”
MZO on the site, which she did on Friday.

The government’s implementation of this section of the Act when it knows that the entire Bill
is being contested before the Superior Court is deplorable. One has to ask: what is the rush?
Why does the government feel the need to employ emergency-type measures to carry out
plans supposedly made in the interest of Ontarians?

For further information please contact:
Ontario Place Protectors
c/o Eric K. Gillespie
egillespie@gillespielaw.ca
(416) 436-7473 (Text/Phone)
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For Immediate Release
December 8, 2023
Citizens Group launches Court Challenge to New Deal for Toronto Act, 2023, Bill 154 
Wednesday morning, minutes before Royal Assent was granted for the New Deal for Toronto Act, an application for Judicial Review of Bill 154 was launched in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice by the citizens group, Ontario Place Protectors - notwithstanding Bill 154’s explicit language prohibiting any citizen challenges to anything the provincial government might decide to do at Ontario Place, including lawsuits such as this one. Contrary to its name, Bill 154 focusses mainly on giving the Ontario government unfettered powers to do as it pleases at Ontario Place.
 
The government has taken extraordinary powers to ensure an unobstructed route to the destruction of the cultural landscape of Ontario Place, exempting itself from any environmental and heritage laws, preventing citizens from challenging any government action including misfeasance…we believe the provincial government is breaching the principles of public trust; Bill 154 does not comport with the rule of law, eliminates the right to virtually all claims and or challenges that could be brought against government, and does not comport with the rules of natural justice and procedural fairness.
 
Bill 154 was rammed through the house, skipped all committee hearings, removing any opportunity for any member of the public to be heard.
 
“My clients feel the breach with the public is so egregious they are launching this lawsuit”, says lawyer Eric Gillespie. “Taking such extraordinary powers for the frivolous purpose of clearing the way for a project by a private Corporation on public lands simply cannot go unchallenged. It is our intent to see Bill 154 declared unlawful, therefore of no force and effect.”  
 
For more information
Contact
Ontario Place Protectors
c/o Eric K Gillespie K.
egillespie@gillespielaw.ca
416 703 6362
416 436 7473