Toronto Ontario Place | ?m | ?s | Infrastructure ON

allabootmatt said:
The way the MGT wends around the buildings looks *a lot* like Marina Bay Sands and Gardens by the Bay in Singapore. Which isn't the worst thing; the path there is an excellent and well-used public amenity, and rather generously proportioned.

But hard not to feel this is a massive missed opportunity, relative to the potential and history of the site.
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Let’s be real. This will be way worse than Gardens by the Bay.
 
thaivic said:
A lot of good ideas but who would fund it? The City and the Province are a bit tight on the cash side, the Liberals shuttered Ontario Place because the yearly expenses were high just to maintain it.
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I appreciate the question (sincerely); and would argue that neither the City nor the Province are in fact tight on the cash-side, except by choice.

The Province had, pre-pandemic, an annual budget of over 150B.

It also just under-spent, its projected spending for the last fiscal year by several billion. Far less than 100% of that one-time money would cover the entire capital cost and 100% of any potential losses for 40 years.

The province also claims to be short of money and ran deficits, even pre-pandemic, while....

Running a small business tax rate of 3.2% on profit, compared with a historic norm of 12%
Running a larger business tax rate of 11.5% on profit compared with 16% prior to the mid 90s.
Having not raised the gas tax of 14.5C per L for more than a generation (it would be closer to 24c per L today had it kept pace with inflation}
Having not followed the lead of Quebec and the Maritime provinces who raised their PST/HST by 2 points when Harper lowered it federally (maintaining the previous overall rate of 15%).

If one were to adjust for the above, allowing some elasticity (you wouldn't get 100% of the perceived revenue increase due to changed behaviour or avoidance).

Ontario would see at least 17B more in annual revenues.

That does not include potential revenues from road tolls, eliminating bad policy tax deductions, raising the provincial portion education tax to its inflation-adjusted historic level, or raising income tax rates to where
they were in the mid 90s.

For the record, I would not advocate being that punitive with taxes; but I would advocate for road tolls on all provincial highways which would be windfall sum, as would eliminating all over corporate welfare, and energy subsidies.

In the end, I. am confident that the province can balance its budget, and have significant, re-investable surplus; on which I would not put Ontario Place at the top of the list $$ should go, but it can fit somewhere in the middle.

****

The City of Toronto has taxes, inclusive of fees for garbage that are lower than most municipalities in the GGH and doesn't have municipal road tolls for the Gardiner/DVP.

Placing Toronto's tax rate at the median level for the GGH would raise a lot of $$$; and a fair road toll would represent several hundred million per year, conservatively.
 
Northern Light said:
@AlexBozikovic has a column on all this in today's Globe and Mail.

It is currently not paywalled.

www.theglobeandmail.com

Ontario Place is going private – and that’s a problem

Ontario Place didn’t need a new business model (or three)
www.theglobeandmail.com www.theglobeandmail.com

I think it would be fair to say he is not an enthusiastic support of the plan, LOL.
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He has a point though.

And to add, not everything has to be about for profit. So my wish right now that this gets stymied until we get a new and more responsible government who want to put the public back into public assets, IMO.
 
From link...
In ye olden days, a walk from Exhibition Loop to Ontario Place was not bad except ... when the Indy made a straight route impassible or the Ex (including its setup and tear down period) completely blocked the route. I remember having to walk in from roughly Fleet Loop because that "not anything crazy" route wasn't available. There is a big problem with the fact that the Ex makes Ont Place inaccessible by transit during two big chunks of the summer.
Click to expand...

From link...
For myself, it was the parking lots (plural) that decreased my desire to go to Ontario Place (and movie theatres).

Most attractions should provide better public transit access to them, without having to safari across any asphalt desert. Why are most new movie theatre complexes these days have vast barrier separating them from public transit.

1627740839083.png

]From link.
 
The more I sit with it the more the architecture of the Therme spa stuff looks incoherent to me. A bunch of swoopy glass that doesn't have any consistent coherent architectural expression to it, and most of it likely wont come close to seeming as light and airy as it is in the renderings. What a let down and a contrast compared to the solid and bold architecture of the original Ontario Place that it will be replacing and juxtaposed with.

I also wonder if anyone from Therme has done the walk from Exhibition Station across the concrete desert of the Exhibition grounds without any clear path through it to Ontario Place in the height of a blazing summer day. They might want to look into that before they invest a bunch of money here in an attraction that nobody but those with cars who can park in the parking lot (until it fills up) will want to make the journey to and pay an expensive entry fee for, only to have to walk back across Exhibition at the end of the day. Looking forward to the In/Future art festival in the grounds of these buildings when their business don't work out and they also become abandoned.
 
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Northern Light said:
I appreciate the question (sincerely); and would argue that neither the City nor the Province are in fact tight on the cash-side, except by choice.

The Province had, pre-pandemic, an annual budget of over 150B.

It also just under-spent, its projected spending for the last fiscal year by several billion. Far less than 100% of that one-time money would cover the entire capital cost and 100% of any potential losses for 40 years.

The province also claims to be short of money and ran deficits, even pre-pandemic, while....

Running a small business tax rate of 3.2% on profit, compared with a historic norm of 12%
Running a larger business tax rate of 11.5% on profit compared with 16% prior to the mid 90s.
Having not raised the gas tax of 14.5C per L for more than a generation (it would be closer to 24c per L today had it kept pace with inflation}
Having not followed the lead of Quebec and the Maritime provinces who raised their PST/HST by 2 points when Harper lowered it federally (maintaining the previous overall rate of 15%).

If one were to adjust for the above, allowing some elasticity (you wouldn't get 100% of the perceived revenue increase due to changed behaviour or avoidance).

Ontario would see at least 17B more in annual revenues.

That does not include potential revenues from road tolls, eliminating bad policy tax deductions, raising the provincial portion education tax to its inflation-adjusted historic level, or raising income tax rates to where
they were in the mid 90s.

For the record, I would not advocate being that punitive with taxes; but I would advocate for road tolls on all provincial highways which would be windfall sum, as would eliminating all over corporate welfare, and energy subsidies.

In the end, I. am confident that the province can balance its budget, and have significant, re-investable surplus; on which I would not put Ontario Place at the top of the list $$ should go, but it can fit somewhere in the middle.

****

The City of Toronto has taxes, inclusive of fees for garbage that are lower than most municipalities in the GGH.and doesn't have municipal road tolls for the Gardiner/DVP.

Placing Toronto's tax rate at the median level for the GGH would raise a lot of $$$; and a fair road toll would represent several hundred million per year, conservatively.
Click to expand...
Increasing taxes is not always the answer to raising more revenues, if the the taxes were increased as per your examples across the board our economy would retract and we would be generating less revenue.

- Gas is already sky-high, drivers already pay for maintaining the roads through their plates, gasoline taxes and taxes on their vehicle insurance, taxing them more with tolls for infrastructure that has already been paid for in my opinion would not be fair, i do agree that the City should be able to toll the Gardiner and the Don Valley to vehicles that are registered outside of the city as the city pays for all of the maintenance of those 2 highways through city property taxes.

-Taxing small business more will just force more small businesses to close down, as a small business owner i personally know how difficult it is to stay afloat, my payments to the province include, WSIB premiums, HST, Health Tax, Property Tax plus tax on profit if i am lucky to make a profit.

-Increasing taxes on big business does not always work as they just move a big part of their operations to lower tax jurisdictions, prime example of what is now happening to states with high taxes like California and New York state, many businesses and individuals are moving to Texas and to Florida from California and New York. I do believe that we can close loopholes to generate more revenues instead of increasing taxes across the board.

- Increasing the HST will just drive more money to the underground economy, In my business we were bombarded with clients wanting to pay cash when HST was at 15% and we lost a ton of business to other companies because we would not accept cash so that the clients could save 15% on the final bill, when HST was lowered to 13% we still had request for cash but a lot less then before, i travel to Europe a lot and have family ties in 5 different countries and i see how people shop that are within 100 km to neighbouring borders, Portuguese will shop in Spain because VAT is lower, Spaniards will shop in France because many items are cheaper due to lower VAT , pre-covid hundreds of thousands of Ontario citizens would cross the border to shop and fill up their cars, when that happens we get zero revenue. In my opinion what we need is better enforcement to make sure that we are collecting taxes from everyone.

-What we really need is better governance and less waste from the people we elect, i am not a fan and i did not vote for Ford but the Liberals that were in power for the previous 15 years were not any better with our money, one example, hydro cost went from one of the cheapest to one of the most expensive with a lot of backtracking and vote buying on power plants, we must not forget that it was McGuinty that shuttered Ontario Place.
 
Irishmonk said:
I've thought for years that the western island would make a great location for a First Nations history museum--and some kind of memorial/monument as well. It could incorporate some of those pretty glass domes posted upthread but they would be used to house recreations of local old growth forests, indigenous communities and what have you. The overall theme or spirit of the place would be In keeping with the original mission of 1970s Ontario educationment, but switched out with what existed beforehand. Kind of a Pre-Ontario Place, if you will.

Frankly, It's high time we properly acknowledged the people whose land we currently occupy.
Click to expand...

I'm all for a museum of First Nations history; however, the optics of locating it on such a peripheral site relative to the core and detached from actual Indigenous historical sites aren't great. Either locate it in the thick of things downtown (e.g., the coach terminal site) where it can stand prominently amid the day-to-day or put it near a site of historical importance like the Teieiagon site or Taber Hill.

I'm glad to see Therme coming to Toronto. Our public aquatic facilities are great if you're looking for a regularly scheduled workout but very limited in leisure swim time, especially when the outdoor pools/waterparks are closed. While I'm sensitive to equity and accessibility concerns, they seem to have struck an all right balance here, and it provides an option for those of us who don't have access to a backyard pool, lakefront cottage or tropical vacations. And at the prices floated up-thread, it appears this will be much better value (not to mention much less gimmicky) than nearby also-on-public-land Medieval Times.

That said, I'm no fan of this government or the process that got us here.
 
Northern Light said:
I appreciate the question (sincerely); and would argue that neither the City nor the Province are in fact tight on the cash-side, except by choice.

The Province had, pre-pandemic, an annual budget of over 150B.

It also just under-spent, its projected spending for the last fiscal year by several billion. Far less than 100% of that one-time money would cover the entire capital cost and 100% of any potential losses for 40 years.

The province also claims to be short of money and ran deficits, even pre-pandemic, while....

Running a small business tax rate of 3.2% on profit, compared with a historic norm of 12%
Running a larger business tax rate of 11.5% on profit compared with 16% prior to the mid 90s.
Having not raised the gas tax of 14.5C per L for more than a generation (it would be closer to 24c per L today had it kept pace with inflation}
Having not followed the lead of Quebec and the Maritime provinces who raised their PST/HST by 2 points when Harper lowered it federally (maintaining the previous overall rate of 15%).

If one were to adjust for the above, allowing some elasticity (you wouldn't get 100% of the perceived revenue increase due to changed behaviour or avoidance).

Ontario would see at least 17B more in annual revenues.

That does not include potential revenues from road tolls, eliminating bad policy tax deductions, raising the provincial portion education tax to its inflation-adjusted historic level, or raising income tax rates to where
they were in the mid 90s.

For the record, I would not advocate being that punitive with taxes; but I would advocate for road tolls on all provincial highways which would be windfall sum, as would eliminating all over corporate welfare, and energy subsidies.

In the end, I. am confident that the province can balance its budget, and have significant, re-investable surplus; on which I would not put Ontario Place at the top of the list $$ should go, but it can fit somewhere in the middle.

****

The City of Toronto has taxes, inclusive of fees for garbage that are lower than most municipalities in the GGH.and doesn't have municipal road tolls for the Gardiner/DVP.

Placing Toronto's tax rate at the median level for the GGH would raise a lot of $$$; and a fair road toll would represent several hundred million per year, conservatively.
Click to expand...
What? We’re overtaxed in this country. If anything taxes should be slashed. Too many dubious Liberal pet projects. No thanks. I’ll take a big marina-casino-hotel complex over any scheme that involves multiple tax hikes, because don’t think for a second that any of those hikes would lead to a better Ontario Place. If anything it would turn out drab and sanitized.
 
Irishmonk said:
I've thought for years that the western island would make a great location for a First Nations history museum--and some kind of memorial/monument as well. It could incorporate some of those pretty glass domes posted upthread but they would be used to house recreations of local old growth forests, indigenous communities and what have you. The overall theme or spirit of the place would be In keeping with the original mission of 1970s Ontario educationment, but switched out with what existed beforehand. Kind of a Pre-Ontario Place, if you will.

Frankly, It's high time we properly acknowledged the people whose land we currently occupy.
Click to expand...
It could have a giant glass Atrium like Ottawa’s Museum of Civilizations or whatever they call it now. Cardinal-inspired architecture could contain some majestic art from north and south.
 
thaivic said:
Increasing taxes is not always the answer to raising more revenues, if the the taxes were increased as per your examples across the board our economy would retract and we would be generating less revenue.

- Gas is already sky-high, drivers already pay for maintaining the roads through their plates, gasoline taxes and taxes on their vehicle insurance, taxing them more with tolls for infrastructure that has already been paid for in my opinion would not be fair, i do agree that the City should be able to toll the Gardiner and the Don Valley to vehicles that are registered outside of the city as the city pays for all of the maintenance of those 2 highways through city property taxes.

-Taxing small business more will just force more small businesses to close down, as a small business owner i personally know how difficult it is to stay afloat, my payments to the province include, WSIB premiums, HST, Health Tax, Property Tax plus tax on profit if i am lucky to make a profit.

-Increasing taxes on big business does not always work as they just move a big part of their operations to lower tax jurisdictions, prime example of what is now happening to states with high taxes like California and New York state, many businesses and individuals are moving to Texas and to Florida from California and New York. I do believe that we can close loopholes to generate more revenues instead of increasing taxes across the board.

- Increasing the HST will just drive more money to the underground economy, In my business we were bombarded with clients wanting to pay cash when HST was at 15% and we lost a ton of business to other companies because we would not accept cash so that the clients could save 15% on the final bill, when HST was lowered to 13% we still had request for cash but a lot less then before, i travel to Europe a lot and have family ties in 5 different countries and i see how people shop that are within 100 km to neighbouring borders, Portuguese will shop in Spain because VAT is lower, Spaniards will shop in France because many items are cheaper due to lower VAT , pre-covid hundreds of thousands of Ontario citizens would cross the border to shop and fill up their cars, when that happens we get zero revenue. In my opinion what we need is better enforcement to make sure that we are collecting taxes from everyone.

-What we really need is better governance and less waste from the people we elect, i am not a fan and i did not vote for Ford but the Liberals that were in power for the previous 15 years were not any better with our money, one example, hydro cost went from one of the cheapest to one of the most expensive with a lot of backtracking and vote buying on power plants, we must not forget that it was McGuinty that shuttered Ontario Place.
Click to expand...
Better and more proactive tax reform is really what is needed if we're talking about "raising taxes", IMO. But that's another discussion for another day and a more related subject line.
 
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