The Ford government is in the midst of a fresh, four-month advertising blitz promoting its controversial overhaul of Ontario Place, but won’t say how much it is spending on commercials and online ads.
A spokesperson for the government said it launched its new Ontario Place marketing campaign at the end of August and expects it to run until late December, promoting plans to modernize the Toronto waterfront attraction.
The campaign language is broad, simply reminding those who see it that the government is currently redeveloping the area.
“Get ready for a brand new Ontario Place,” one reads.
Minister of Tourism, Culture and Gaming Stan Cho told Global News he thought the campaign was a good use of public money because people should know the extent of the change that is coming.
“I, for one, think it’s something people should get excited about — I’m super excited about it, so we just want to get the word out there,” he said at the legislature on Monday.
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“Those renderings that we published that are publicly available really, I think, gave people a sense of how transformational this is going to be. The place was sinking into Lake Ontario.”
How much the government has spent on the campaign, however, is unclear. Cho did not respond to questions about the budget for the marketing run, while his office simply said numbers would be available eventually through public accounts.
Ontario NDP Leader Marit Stiles said public money should not be going to fund the commercial campaign.
“I think all they’re trying to do is play defence, they’re playing defence, because the fact is that Ontarians are really, really unhappy about this,” she said.
Two years ago, the province budgeted $2 million to “raise awareness” about its Ontario Place vision through online, radio, television and billboard commercials that ran for eight weeks.
That campaign, internal documents previously obtained by Global News said, was “in response to some early negative sentiment toward limited aspects of the plan.”
Questions about the Ontario Place plan have focused on the Austrian company Therme, which is building a privately-owned and operated spa and waterpark across most of the West Island.
The Ford government gave the company a 95-year lease for public land to operate the business. Concerns were also raised about the unusual bidding process implemented for the redevelopment and the commitment Ontario has made to build parking spots for the facility. The government is set to spend more than $2 billion to help get the spa underway.
Stiles suggested the current advertising campaign could boost the spa company’s interests — not the public’s.
“Therme should be paying for their own campaigns,” she said. “Why is the government and why are taxpayers subsidizing the private company’s ad campaign? I mean, they’re the only ones that are really going to benefit from this and I think the government knows that.”
The minister disagreed.
“No, not at all, the biggest benefactor is the public space,” Cho said. “This is 50 acres of public space. And as I said, the largest green space in the entire downtown core. This is for the public.”
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