Ford ‘very satisfied’ with Ontario Place deal after NYT report alleging developer misrepresented itself

Ontario Premier Doug Ford speaks at a press conference in Toronto on Thursday, April 17, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Arlyn McAdorey (Arlyn McAdorey/The Canadian Press)

Premier Doug Ford says he is “very satisfied” with the province’s $2.2-billion agreement to build a mega-spa at Ontario Place after a report alleged the developer misrepresented itself to secure the deal.

“We looked into it, and it was clear as day,” Ford said at an unrelated news conference after he was asked about the New York Times report that was published on Wednesday.

In the hours following the report’s release, Ford was asked whether the provincial government had been “scammed,” to which he said officials would “double and triple check” that the deal was watertight.

“We have no reason to believe there’s been any wrongdoing. We’re moving forward with this project. It’s going to be world class. It’s going to be spectacular,” he said Thursday.

According to the New York Times, Austria-based Therme had presented itself as an “industry player” in its efforts to redevelop the public land at Toronto’s waterfront, stating that it operated as many as half a dozen spas in Europe.

However, the report alleges, the developer had only built and operated just one spa outside of Bucharest, Romania and that it had tied its success to a business of the same name owned by someone named Josef Wund.

The report goes on to say that after Therme beat out other applicants to spearhead the Ontario Place redevelopment deal in 2021, it was able to secure funding for similar projects in Manchester, England and Dubai.

Ford pointed to an auditor general’s report, published in December 2024, to defend Therme’s successful application to redevelop the land.

“Every single submission that came in, including this one, underwent a thorough evaluation…an analysis of audited financial statements demonstrated that Therme met the financial net worth test required. The auditor general confirmed this,” Ford said on Thursday.

While the AG report noted that the 95-year lease on the land requires Therme Group to have a net worth of $100 million – a financial test Infrastructure Ontario officials confirmed it passed – the AG also noted that the developer’s equity following the development application deadline “appeared low” at less than one million euros.

The AG report also found that the redevelopment process was “unfair” and that Infrastructure Ontario “did not conduct due diligence” to ensure that the spas Therme said it had under its umbrella in its submission were actually owned and operated by them.

In a statement, a spokesperson for the Therme Group said that the claim it had misrepresented itself was “simply untrue.”

“Therme Group and the Wund companies and Wund Foundation have had a longstanding and formalized relationship which enabled the development of Therme Bucharest and future projects of this nature, with the use of the concept and the sharing of staff and operational expertise,” the spokesperson wrote.

In response to the New York Times report, opposition parties are calling on Ford to scrap the deal.

“I think it’s better to get this over with now and cancel the deal. And we’ve been saying that since day one,” NDP Leader Marit Stiles said Wednesday.

“There doesn’t seem to be any rationalization for signing a 95-year lease with a company that perhaps may have misrepresented their holdings and was given $2.2 billion of taxpayers’ hard-earned money,” said Liberal Leader Bonnie Crombie.