WATCH: A group of people are trying to get Toronto to host Expo 2025 but the federal government may have already quashed the idea. Jackson Proskow reports.
TORONTO – A request by a coalition of business, community and political leaders for the federal government to get behind a push for Toronto to host the 2025 World’s Fair may be dead in its tracks.
The coalition of NDP MP Craig Scott, Councillor Kristyn Wong-Tam, CEO of the Toronto Arts Council Claire Hopkinson, President of the Carpenters Union Local 27 Mike Yorke, former mayor Art Eggleton and former PC MPP Phil Gillies lent their voices to the call for the World’s Fair on Tuesday.
The group held a press conference at city hall where they called on the federal government to lobby on Toronto’s behalf for Expo 2025.
“It is still very relevant,” Senator Eggleton said during the press conference Tuesday. “People still go to expositions and trade fairs all over the world.”
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Expo 2015 has attracted a record number of participating countries but Canada, the United States and Britain are not participating, citing costs.
Expo 2025 would last for six months and is estimated to generate $14 billion in economic spinoffs and bring approximately 14 million tourists.
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“So you’re literally going to have six months of foot traffic and activity,” Wong-Tam said.
But a statement made to Global News from the Office of the Minister of Canadian Heritage casts doubt on any chance of Canada’s largest city hosting a World’s Fair in the near future.
“During a period of fiscal restraint, our government has taken a budget decision to not host or participate in future Expos due to their high costs. This decision will save Canadian taxpayers $8.9 million per year,” the letter reads.
The Bureau International des Expositions, the international organization which administers the events, requires funding and support from the host country’s federal government – something which the Harper government is currently unwilling to do.
One of the reasons for hosting the World’s Fair is to highlight Toronto’s growing need for improved infrastructure, former PC leader John Tory said Tuesday.
“We seem to need events and deadlines to get us to focus on the need to invest, and build and upgrade to improve some of the basic elements of urban life.”
Internationally, many famous structures were built in a city’s preparation for the World’s Fair: most notably, the Eiffel Tower, which was built for the 1889 Expo in Paris. Only two World’s Fairs have been held in Canada: Montreal in 1967 and Vancouver in 1986.
– With files from Jackson Proskow
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