Toronto is surprisingly short on children's spaces compared to other Canadian cities
Once a leader in educational venues for kids, Toronto has lost major institutions and now lags behind Montreal, Vancouver, Winnipeg and Sudbury due to budget cuts since the 1990s.
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Toronto was once a leader in children's museums and educational spaces, but successive budget cuts since the 1990s have left the city surprisingly short on dedicated venues for young people compared to other major Canadian cities.
Montreal has the Science Centre, Vancouver has Science World, Winnipeg has the Science Gallery at the Manitoba Museum and Sudbury has Science North. Toronto, by contrast, has very few educational spaces dedicated to children since the closure of the original Ontario Science Centre.
"We are very behind," said Naomi Hamer, associate professor and chair of the English department at Toronto Metropolitan University, whose research focuses on the place of children within museums. From the late 1960s through the 1980s, Toronto had plenty of such spaces. The city has since lost the Royal Ontario Museum's McLaughlin Planetarium (1968–1995), the Children's Own Museum (1998–2002, which took over the planetarium's space), and the original Ontario Science Centre.
The opening of the Ontario Science Centre in 1969 marked an architectural and educational milestone fuelled by Canada's Confederation Centennial. The same year, the planetarium opened its doors. It was a golden age, supported by federal funding and innovation. The Science Centre, along with the San Francisco Exploratorium which opened the same year, was way ahead of its time in experiential learning for science and environmental education.
Today, Toronto's limited options come with steep price tags. For a family of four, admission to the AGO or ROM costs a minimum of $60, excluding feature exhibitions (which can reach $100 at the ROM). Little Canada costs around $150, the Toronto Zoo nearly $200, and the temporary Ontario Science Centre at Harbourfront Centre cost $75 in 2024.
The temporary Harbourfront location, which opened Monday, features a new space exhibit, Innovation Station, KidSpark interactive exhibits and outdoor space — but at only 86,000 square feet, it is a fraction of the space the original Science Centre provided.
