Published in the Hamilton Spectator, 23 January 2026

Redevelopment will bring jobs, revenue

Re: Ontario Place is a $2-billion test of our priorities, Jan. 17

If only things were as plain and simple as scrapping the redevelopment of Ontario Place. Mark Chamberlain clearly hates Premier Doug Ford and that’s his right, but trotting out the usual trope of “a private, luxury spa” is getting very boring. I’m a Progressive Conservative supporter, but I have my issues with Ford too.

Firstly, the spa will be privately-owned, but not a private club, accessible only to the wealthy citizens of Ontario. In reality, the facility, which will include a waterpark with pools and waterslides, will be no less affordable than other tourist attractions in the GTHA, like Canada’s Wonderland and Casa Loma.

Secondly, the “private spa” is just one of the attractions that will be at Ontario Place. Besides free, open park space, providing “affordable recreation and safe green space,” and the concert venue, there will be the new Ontario Science Centre.

Thirdly, if Mr. Chamberlain is worried about tax dollars being diverted from things like hospitals and supportive housing, there are many other areas where governments at all levels could save our hard-earned tax dollars. How about cutting the wasteful bureaucracy in hospitals that takes money away from front-line health care? How about ceasing the unnecessary name changing of streets, buildings and public spaces for specious reasons.

Maybe Hamilton council could scrap the unnecessary LRT project, one that will serve only a small portion of the city?

So, stop focusing on the “luxury spa” for millionaires trope. Instead, try focusing on the addition of a new tourist attraction that will generate tax revenue and provide jobs for residents of the GTHA. Right now, Ontario Place is providing nothing for the local economy.

Bruce Forsyth, Barrie

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Un-edited version:

January 2025

Re: “Ontario Place tests our priorities” (Mark Chamberlain, The Hamilton Spectator, 17 January): If only things were as plain and simple as scrapping the re-development of Ontario Place. Mr. Chamberlain clearly hates Premier Doug Ford and that’s his right, but trotting out the usual trope of “a private, luxury spa” is getting very boring. I’m a Conservative supporter, but I have my issues with Ford too, including the fact that he’s not being fiscally conservative enough for my liking.

Firstly, the spa will be privately-owned, but not a private club, accessible only to the wealthy citizens of Ontario. In reality, the facility, which will include a waterpark with pools and waterslides, will be no less affordable than other tourist attractions in the Greater Toronto & Hamilton Area (GTHA), like Canada’s Wonderland and Casa Loma.

Secondly, the “private spa” is just one of the attractions that will be at Ontario Place. Besides free, open park space, providing “affordable recreation and safe green space,” and the Budweiser Stage concert venue, there will be the new Science Centre. I won’t claim that Ontario Place is the best place for the Science Centre, but it’s not a bad location either. Having it in the downtown area would make it more accessible to tourists, which should be a major target audience for the centre. Sure, Torontonians will always be patrons, but how often do locals visit in any given year? When was the last time you, the good readers out there, visited the Science Centre (prior to closure, of course)? Be honest!

As for the residents of Flemington Park, where the old building resides, not having their de facto community centre anymore, there is no reason the city couldn’t buy the building and repair it themselves so it can be reopened for community usage.

Thirdly, if Mr. Chamberlain is worried about tax dollars being diverted from things like hospitals and supportive housing, there are many, many other areas where governments at all levels could save our hard-earned tax dollars. How about cutting the wasteful bureaucracy in hospitals that takes money away from front-line health care? How about ceasing the unnecessary name changing of streets, buildings and public spaces (Yonge-Dundas Square) for specious reasons. How about scrapping the federal gun confiscation from law-abiding citizens that will have no effect on public safety because the real problem are illegal guns and the criminals wielding them. Remember, none of the guns possessed by Gabriel Wartman were legally owned and all but one were smuggled into Canada from America.

Maybe Hamilton Council could scrap the unnecessary LRT project, one that will serve only a small portion of the city, in favour of buses in dedicated bus lanes.

So, stop focusing on the “luxury spa” for millionaires trope. Instead, try focusing on the addition of a new tourist attraction that will generate tax revenue and provide jobs for residents of the GTHA. Right now, Ontario Place is providing nothing for the local economy.

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Ontario Place is a $2-billion test of our priorities

Opinion | Ontario Place is a $2-billion test of our priorities

Those same dollars could do something far more powerful.

Jan. 16, 2026

By Mark Chamberlain

Mark Chamberlain is the former chair of the Hamilton Roundtable for Poverty Reduction.

Hamilton knows better than most what happens when housing shortages, mental-health gaps and strained emergency services collide.

We see it in overcrowded emergency rooms, in paramedics stretched thin, and in police increasingly asked to manage social crises. We also see it in encampments — not as a failure of individuals, but as a failure of systems that respond to crisis instead of preventing it.

That is why Ontario’s plan to spend more than $2 billion relocating the Science Centre and subsidizing a private spa and massive parking garage at Ontario Place deserves a serious second look.

Because those same dollars could do something far more powerful.

People living in encampments cost public systems an estimated $60,000 to $100,000 per person every year through emergency health care, policing, courts, shelters, and crisis response. Permanent supportive housing costs about $25,000 a year — and dramatically reduces emergency service use.

Providing permanent supportive housing is not just compassionate policy. It is smart public finance.

If Ontario housed the roughly 8,000 people living in encampments, the province could save $300 million to $600 million every year in health care, police, and emergency services. Those savings would be felt immediately in communities like Hamilton, where hospitals operate under chronic pressure and municipalities struggle to fund front line services.

At the same time, public reporting has put Ontario’s exposure in the current Ontario Place plan at roughly $2.2 billion. Even redirecting half of that would free up $1.1 billion — enough to fund more than 3,000 permanent supportive homes and cut encampments by a third in one decisive move.

That would not just be a housing strategy. It would be a health-system strategy, a public-safety strategy, and a municipal cost-containment strategy.

Yet the conversation around Ontario Place has been framed as if this is simply about waterfront redevelopment. It is not. It is about whether Ontario continues to invest in projects that concentrate benefits while socializing costs — or finally aligns its spending with what it says it values: health, safety, and fiscal responsibility.

So then, what about Ontario Place?

Instead of becoming a destination defined by private luxury, it could become something profoundly different: a free nature play and discovery health park — a place that supports mental health, physical activity and childhood development through play, for families across the province.

For all Ontario families, access to affordable recreation and safe green space is not a lifestyle extra. It is a public-health necessity. Rates of anxiety, depression, chronic disease, and childhood inactivity are not abstract statistics — they are lived realities.

Decades of public-health research shows access to nature reduces chronic disease, improves mental well-being, and lowers long-term health costs. Every dollar invested in active public space returns $2 to $5 in avoided health costs over time.

This is what prevention looks like at scale: not another program trying to clean up the consequences of crisis, but environments that quietly reduce the number of crises in the first place.

Ontario now faces a clear choice. We face a clear choice.

One path delivers a spa, a garage, and long-term public operating liabilities.

The other delivers thousands housed, hundreds of millions of dollars saved annually, and a public-health asset for generations.

This is not an argument against development. It is an argument for development that pays dividends — fiscally, socially, and in human well-being.

Hamilton has always understood the value of practical compassion. We know that the strongest communities are not built by reacting to crisis after crisis, but by investing in systems that prevent those crises from happening at all.

Ontario Place should reflect those same values — not private luxury and privilege for few, but public good for many.

Sources: Therme shows off design of Ontario Place water park – TorontoToday.ca, 2020 Nova Scotia attacks – Wikipedia.