Editorial - Deus Ex Expo

Let's stop working on mega-projects and start building Toronto

The plan to host a World's Fair in 2015 was on its deathbed as we went to press. Bids for the event are due tomorrow (Nov. 3), but earlier this week, the provincial and federal governments couldn't agree on who would pay the multi-billion-dollar deficit the event usually rings up. And as an online exclusive report on the Expo process by Eye Weekly's Andrew Mickel (available at eyeweekly.com) shows, that's a good thing. If we scrap the Expo, we can get on with the business of building Toronto.

If by some miracle of backroom wrangling a bid goes ahead, we won't hear until December 2007 who will host Expo 2015. (Milan looks like a stronger contender than Toronto right now.) That's another year of expensive preparation for an event we have no guarantee of winning. For the fifth time in 20 years (see bids for the 1996 and 2008 Olympics and Expos 1998 and 2000), Toronto will probably narrowly miss out on hosting a major international event.

And if our bid is successful? That's even worse news. Expos cost a lot: conservative estimates put the Toronto bid at over $4 billion. To a politician with vision, that price tag buys the city a world-class makeover and some tourist dollars. If you don't embrace that vision, all it buys is a barely perceptible international limelight on Toronto for six months and some world-class white elephants.

That the event could increase tourism by some degree is beyond question, but it would be a very poor return for the money involved. It wouldn't put Toronto on the map as it did for Vancouver in 1986; Expos have become anachronisms. New technology is around us every day and nations hold a daily fair of what they stand for on the internet. Besides, staging a showcase of the world in multicultural Toronto is pointless.

The biggest loser in this sorry tale is the port lands. Throughout successive bidding for two Olympics and three Expos, development of the proposed site has been on hold. It's time we abandoned our daydreams of an international mega-event and started looking at developing the GTA's largest tract of underdeveloped land in a way that serves our long-term needs.

What the Expo bid has managed to do is revisit our city's unstoppable disbelief in its own worth. From the insecure days of Art Eggleton, through the bombastic nonsense of Mel Lastman and now to David Miller's flaccid push for an Expo, dreams of rebirth on the world's stage have pointed to an obsession with the city's international standing.

Expo would still tie up city agencies, public and private money, and political capital for the next decade.

Beyond the Expo, the Toronto Waterfront Revitalization Corporation is scheduled to spend $1.5 billion in the wider district over the next decade. The plans won't deal with the port lands for years, and will involve less money than an Expo. But local politicians should be putting their efforts into making existing plans work, rather than chasing deus ex machina solutions for the waterfront's woes.

Why wait for Hungary to build us a new pavilion in four years that we can jerry-rig into a hospital a decade from now instead of working to improve healthcare now? Why hold the TTC hostage to what the Expo team want, instead of helping make current services work? Why build a second exhibition site in the south end of the city, instead of affordable housing?

In short, why are we waiting for an international committee to declare Toronto a great city, instead of making it a better place to live now?