Premier Doug Ford's government tabled a bill on Tuesday teeing up renovations of Queen's Park, a 130-year-old building chock-full of hazards like lead and asbestos.
The legislation would enact a new Queen's Park Restoration Secretariat Act, creating a mini-ministry to run the precinct's facelift. It would also tweak Ontario's freedom-of-information law, keeping parts of the process concealed for 20 years after the renovation is finished and the law is repealed. These restrictions wouldn't apply to project records per se, but would keep under wraps some of the discussions leading to them, according to briefing documents released by the government. This aligns with limits already applying to many of the records of the legislative assembly, which is independent of the government of the day.
"Our government’s proposal strikes an important balance between the need to leverage the infrastructure expertise, fiscal transparency, and accountability of the government with the independence and oversight of our legislative assembly,” Government House Leader Paul Calandra said in a press release.
“While much work lies ahead, I am confident the restoration of Queen’s Park will make it a functional place of business for another 130 years and a symbol of our democracy of which all Ontarians can be proud.”
The new ministry that would be created by Bill 75, Queen's Park Restoration Act, would be called the Queen's Park Restoration Secretariat, which would handle all things precinct-renovation-related. It would be headed by the government house leader, a position currently held by Calandra.
Bill 75 also slightly changes how the board of internal economy (BOIE) works. The BOIE is an obscure committee that includes the Speaker, the government house leader, the official Opposition house leader and can include representatives from other parties holding official party status, of which there presently are none. The BOIE is responsible for how the legislative building and larger precinct work. Essentially, it dictates the financial and administrative policies at the legislative assembly itself.
Bill 75 allows for appointments of alternate members "if a member is absent and/or unable to fulfil their duties, and upon dissolution of the parliament," so it can still function, the government's press release states.
It also sets out explicit requirements for when and how the new ministry reports to the BOIE, and requires the new ministry to take the BOIE's advice.
Ontario's legislature is in dire need of repairs. MPPs have been trying to figure out how to carry them out for years. The building has never seen a near full-scale renovation aside from when a massive 1909 fire destroyed parts of the building.
Calandra was recently tasked with overseeing the project, and MPPs on the procedure and house affairs committee recently went to Ottawa to see what the federal government's Parliament Hill renovations can teach them.
In early February, Calandra said the renovations will come with a high price tag.
"It's certainly not going to cost less than a billion dollars," he said in an interview with The Canadian Press.
Renovations will also move law-making in Ontario to a new home away from Queen's Park, rather than them staying there and having a "piecemeal" job done, according to Calandra in the same interview.
"We will need to decamp and (have) a full restoration happen, and that just can't happen in a piecemeal way and still have a functioning assembly at the same time, given the scale of what has to happen here," he said.
If this work were to wait another five or six years, Calandra said, it might not be possible to save the building.
—With files from Charlie Pinkerton and The Canadian Press
