Rallying the Troops: the No Casino-Rethinking Ontario Place Walk
On a newly minted sunny Saturday afternoon in Toronto over a hundred civic-minded Torontonians, with kids in tow and a few curious tourists gathered at Ontario Place for one of the annual global Jane’s Walk organized by Trinity-Spadina MPP Rosario Marchese, OPSEU representative Laurie Miller and No Casino Toronto co-founder Peggy Calvert.
With the council vote less than three weeks away, what worried Calvert were councillors in Scarborough and North York still being undecided. Although she felt “cautiously optimistic,” Calvert said she gave more weight to “cautiously.” Which is why this walk, felt like and was more of an information session, pep rally to recruit people to approach undecided residents in the aforementioned enclaves and to visit in person, which Marchese suggests is more effective, or write a letter to their councillors to convince them to reject a downtown Toronto mega-casino.
The marquee speaker was Ontario Place’s original architect Eberhard Zeidler who spoke fondly and nostalgically about the noise challenges of the Forum’s, the famous open outdoor amphitheatre encircled by grassland, massive concerts in its heyday. He would like to see a park that welcomes people of all ages much like surprise guest speaker architect and urban planner Ken Greenberg who gave an impromptu speech. He spoke of being called in to help cities dealing with “the negative impacts of the casinos” and what he would like to see happening to Ontario Place and Exhibition grounds. He proposes “repurposing the original structures” that were built in response to Montreal’s Expo ’67 and perhaps placing “universities” or other learning facilities and recreation spaces. “What we really need is a great park space,” he explained, “it should have special things in it like the annual Exhibition… all kinds of revenue producing things,” but, he added, “there should be a great place for people to come with their families or alone… to enjoy this wonderful space on our waterfront.”
The event did not last the two listed hours. Energy seemed to wain as the crowd thinned despite the offer of brightly coloured gift bags, No Casino signs in need of new lawns and Laurie Miller’s creative on-the-spot project that included drawing pictures of a new Ontario Place with big colourful chunky chalk that I would have salivated over as an 8-year-old. But Marchese felt optimistic because the No Casino movement has “mobilized public action” and has made people realize “that public space is under threat and that they need to come together, have their say in order to prevent these kinds of threats.”
John Sewell, former mayor of Toronto, makes a similar observation in his City Hall column, he says, the “casino has created a new and fresh political alignment in the city. I suspect it will spill over to the other big issues that now swirl around the city [like] Porter Airlines [wanting] to bring jets to the Island airport and extend the runway.” He’s right. One woman was handing out “no jet” buttons even before the walk started and Peggy Calvert said that the jets were next on her list of concerns. As casino opponents anxiously await the council vote on May 21st it seems they have found comfort and inspiration in creating a new civic movement.
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