Ontario Place at the Supreme Court: Today's Hearing on the Law That Lets Ontario Skip Its Own Rules

Nine justices in Ottawa are about to decide how much power a provincial government can hand itself. This morning, the Supreme Court of Canada hears the appeal of Ontario Place Protectors, the coalition challenging the Rebuilding Ontario Place Act — the 2023 law that cleared the way for a private spa on Toronto's waterfront by exempting the project from Ontario's own environmental and heritage laws.

No verdict is expected today — decisions typically follow months after argument — but today's hearing is the last, highest-profile airing of a fight that lower courts have already rejected twice.

What ROPA actually does

ROPA — the Rebuilding Ontario Place Act, 2023 — was, according to the challengers, enacted within days, without public input and without debate in the legislature. Its provisions are blunt: the redevelopment is exempt from the Environmental Assessment Act and the Heritage Act, and the City of Toronto loses its authority to regulate noise emissions from the site.

The sharper edge is what the law does to the courts themselves. ROPA bars causes of action, damages, and other remedies against elected and non-elected officials for conduct including misfeasance, bad faith, and breach of trust or fiduciary obligation. In the coalition's framing, the law "impermissibly insulates state action from judicial scrutiny" and runs afoul of section 96 of the Constitution Act, 1867, which protects the superior courts' supervisory role.

How we got here: dismissed twice

An Ontario judge dismissed the coalition's application. A unanimous Court of Appeal panel did the same. Writing for the court, Justice Grant Huscroft acknowledged the redevelopment "is strongly opposed by a number of concerned citizens and organizations" — then shut the door anyway: "The court is not an alternative forum for resolving political grievances. The only legitimate question for the court is whether the impugned provisions of ROPA violate the law or the Constitution," he wrote. "They do not, and the appeal must be dismissed."

Leave is granted sparingly, and only where the justices see an issue of national importance. They saw one here.

The Therme deal at the centre

Ontario Place opened in 1971 as the province's answer to Expo 67: Eberhard Zeidler's floating pods, the world's first permanent IMAX theatre — the Cinesphere — set in Michael Hough's naturalized landscape. The Ford government's plan hands the west islands to Therme, an Austrian waterpark developer, on a 95-year lease for a stadium-sized indoor waterpark and spa.

The award drew scrutiny from Ontario's auditor general, and Therme's finances have been questioned in investigative reporting by both the New York Times and the Toronto Star. Meanwhile, the Ontario Science Centre was shuttered in 2024 — officially over a faulty roof, though the engineer's report used to justify the closure never called for a full shutdown. Its planned relocation to a shrunken facility at Ontario Place, critics say, exists partly to justify a mall-sized aboveground parking structure on the waterfront.

What the challengers are asking for

Ontario Place Protectors want two things from the court: a declaration that ROPA breaches section 96 of the Constitution Act, 1867, and confirmation that the public trust doctrine — the idea that governments hold environmental and cultural assets in trust for the public — is an unwritten constitutional principle in Canada, and that it has been breached here.

Counsel Eric Gillespie frames the stakes beyond Toronto: "If you can essentially eliminate all laws for Ontario Place, there is now nothing preventing governments across Canada from doing this for anything else..."

The intervener list reads like a roll call of Canadian civil society: Ontario Place for All (with the Toronto Field Naturalists, Democracy Watch and the National Trust for Canada), the B.C. Civil Liberties Association, six First Nations (Athabasca Chipewyan, Mikisew Cree, Vuntut Gwitchin, Little Salmon/Carmacks, Selkirk and Na-Cho Nyäk Dun), the City of Toronto, Greenpeace Canada, the Advocates' Society, Ecojustice, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, the Advocates for the Rule of Law, Animal Justice Canada and the Canadian Constitution Foundation. Arrayed against them: the attorneys general of Ontario, British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Quebec, Yukon and Canada — most with outside counsel, according to the coalition.

Ford's side of the story

Premier Doug Ford has never hidden his view of the opposition. When leave was granted in January, he told reporters: "I think it's a bunch of crazy lefties that want to protect one tree or two trees or three birds... we're building the most spectacular destination anywhere in the country, if not North America... I can't wait to get this finished."

The government's position: the park was crumbling, the redevelopment will draw millions, and the courts shouldn't referee a political fight. Whether nine justices agree is today's question.

One caveat: the hearing notice comes from the challengers' own counsel (labeled as such in the sources below) — the court's own docket is the authoritative record, and the coalition's characterizations of ROPA are contested by the province.

Sources

• CNW (Ontario Place Protectors counsel) — Supreme Court of Canada Hearing Date Set for October 15, 2026
• Canadian Architect — Supreme Court to hear challenge of law allowing Ontario Place redevelopment
• Canadian Architect — Editorial: Ontario Place on Trial