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When Ontario introduced new math curricula for grades 1 to 8 in 2020, standardized test scores had already been declining for a decade. Last year, only half of Grade 6 students met the provincial math standard. The Ontario Conservatives’ “back-to-basics” focus on math is helping young people prepare for tech careers and basic budgeting. Unfortunately, a refresher in basic math skills seems in order for some of the people who manage our money in Queen’s Park, too.

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Take, for example, the government’s decision to cancel the province’s 10-year contract with The Beer Store, which the Conservatives themselves say will cost $225 million. That’s a steep price to pay for expanding alcohol offerings in grocery stores just a little bit and introducing convenience store sales a little earlier, thereby meeting an urgent need that no one but the prime minister is hearing.

The Beer Store contract was set to expire in December 2025; Premier Doug Ford’s inability to sit out the deal (to save a lot of money) is a bit like failing the marshmallow test. At the same time, cashiers at corner stores are becoming gatekeepers, preventing minors from accessing alcohol.

It gets worse. The provincial Liberals claim the true cost of cancelling the contract is nearly a billion dollars. Let’s put that into the form of a math problem: How long would it take to waste a billion dollars if you saved a million dollars a day? The answer: You would have to throw away a million dollars every day for nearly three years.

This appalling misuse of funds became a sharp point of contrast this week for people protesting the closure of the Ontario Science Centre. The iconic attraction was built in 1969. It closed abruptly on June 21 after an engineering report by Rimkus Consulting Group raised concerns that parts of the aerated concrete roof could collapse under snow accumulation.

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“Unfortunately, we have to take the warning signals from the engineers very seriously,” Infrastructure Minister Kinga Surma told reporters this week. “It was a very difficult decision.”

Surma’s dilemma followed the prime minister’s highly unpopular decision, announced last April, to move the science centre downtown and demolish the remarkable building designed by Toronto architect Raymond Moriyama. A new facility is set to open in 2028 in a redesigned Ontario Place, alongside a luxurious, private spa.

Eight months after that decision, Infrastructure Ontario belatedly released cost estimates justifying the move. The report estimated that the government could build and operate a new plant for $600 million less than it would cost to renovate and operate the existing plant over 50 years. (That’s $12 million a year, for those keeping track of the math.)

Of course, Ford already gave his reason for the move in April: “We all grew up going to the Science Centre every now and then. It’s boring.”

Well, I’m tired too. The Moriyama building is as old as I am, and although my body sags in places, I find it hard to believe that architecture of this vintage is too old to be saved.

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In fact, the Rimkus report makes precise recommendations on how to save the roof. It recommends gradually replacing the aerated concrete panels over the next ten years if they require regular renewal. In addition, the panels with the highest risk (those that make up less than three percent of the roof area) can be tackled while almost all permanent exhibitions remain safely open to the public.

Keeping the facility open is less a question of health and safety than simply a question of spending priorities.

The cost of these roof repairs is estimated at $22 to $40 million, which is a drop in the ocean.

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