Ontario Legislative Building

Legislative building in Toronto, Canada

The Ontario Legislative Building is a structure in central Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It houses the Legislative Assembly of Ontario, and the viceregal suite of the Lieutenant Governor of Ontario and offices for members of the provincial parliament (MPPs). The building is surrounded by Queen's Park, sitting on that part south of Wellesley Street, which is the former site of King's College (later the University of Toronto), which was leased from the university by the municipal government of Toronto in 1859, for a "peppercorn" payment of CAD$1 per annum on a 999 year term. The southern portion of the site was later handed over to the provincial government. The building and the provincial government are both often referred to by the metonym "Queen's Park".

Designed by Richard A. Waite, the Ontario Legislative Building is an asymmetrical, five storey structure built in the Richardsonian Romanesque style, with a load bearing iron frame. This is clad inside and out in Canadian materials where possible; the 10.5 million bricks were made by inmates of the Central Prison, and the Ontario sandstone—with a pink hue that has earned the building the colloquial name of The Pink Palace and was given a rustic finish for most of the exterior, but dressed for trim around windows and other edges. There can also be seen over the edifice a multitude of stone carvings, including gargoyles, grotesques, and friezes. The exterior is punctuated with uncharacteristically large windows, allowed by the nature of the iron structure. The 1909 North Wing was built by noted Toronto architect George Wallace Gouinlock and E. J. Lennox added two floors to the west wing. The main façade fronts south, with the central axis of the building an extension of that for University Avenue, meaning that the Legislative Building creates a terminating vista for the north end of that main thoroughfare. The Legislative Chamber is directly on this axis, in the centre of the building, and is lit by the three large and prominent arched windows above the main portico. This block is flanked by two domed towers, the west of which was originally intended to hold a clock, but was fitted with a rose window instead, after funds for the clock were never amassed. The asymmetry of the south face was not originally as strong as it is at present; the west wing was designed to have three storeys under a pyramidal roof, as the east wing is still formed nowadays. After the fire of 1909, however, the west side of the Legislative Building was repaired and expanded, with an added fourth floor that bears wall dormer windows in a long, gabled roof. The suite is a three storey complex, with its own ceremonial stairway and elevator entrances, where members of the Canadian royal family and visiting dignitaries are greeted. A rose garden, donated by the Monarchist League of Canada in honour of the Silver Jubilee of Elizabeth II in 1977, and added to for the Golden and Diamond Jubilees, sits across the driveway from the suite's entrance portico. Inside are reception rooms, a state dining room, staff offices, and a kitchen, arranged around a central stair hall. The furnishings and chandeliers throughout the suite came from the last government house, Chorley Park, and paintings from the Government of Ontario Art Collection and the Toronto Public Library. The suite is also home to portraits of some past lieutenant governors (including a large rendition of Upper Canada's first lieutenant governor, John Graves Simcoe, painted by Edmund Wyly Grier and on loan from the Toronto Public Library as well as of Elizabeth II, Queen of Canada, and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. Special art exhibitions are also commissioned from time to time. The Music Room is the largest space in the viceregal suite and is the site of New Years' levées, swearing in ceremonies for cabinet ministers, and presentations of, and investitures for, provincial honours.

The present Ontario Legislative Building is the seventh such structure to serve as Ontario's parliament building. Either Navy Hall or the Freemasons Hall in Newark, Upper Canada (today Niagara on the Lake, Ontario), served as the first legislature, where the initial meeting of the House of Assembly occurred on 17 September 1791. Only three years later, however, construction began on a dedicated parliament building in York (now Toronto), as it was felt by Lieutenant Governor John Graves Simcoe that the presence of a provincial capital directly across the border from the United States was too great a risk, especially as the relations between the US and Britain were then tense. By June the complex, located at the intersection of Front and Parliament Streets, was completed, and the humble wood structures were dubbed the Palace of Parliament (The structure resembled two military barracks). The relocation to York did not ensure the protection of the capital, however, and the Palace of Parliament was destroyed by fire on 27 April 1813, as a consequence of an attack on the city in the War of 1812. The House of Assembly then met once in the ballroom of the York Hotel (between King and Front Streets), and regularly, from then until 1820, at the home of Chief Justice of the Court of the King's Bench William Henry Draper, which was located at the present intersection of Wellington and York Streets. The new parliament buildings was a two storey Georgian architecture structure, put up on the site of the previous structure, stood only for four years, succumbing to an accidental fire on 30 December 1824.

On 1 July 1867, however, the province joined with two others in confederation and was split into the present day provinces of Ontario and Quebec, meaning that new legislatures were established for each of the two new provincial entities. Toronto was chosen as the capital of the former, and the legislative assembly moved back to the same Front Street property that had been home to the House of Assembly for the Province of Canada, despite the structure having been damaged by fire in 1861 and 1862. By 1880, a request was made for designs for a new parliament building for the province of Ontario, and, when none of the entries was found to be less than , the legislature approved during 1885 a budget of for the chosen scheme by Richard A. Waite. Construction then commenced in 1886, and the Ontario Legislative Building was (though still incomplete) officially opened on 4 April 1893 by the then Lieutenant Governor of Ontario, George Airey Kirkpatrick. The final cost was tallied at approximately ,

With an increasing population in the province, it became necessary in 1909 to add a wing to the north side of the Ontario Legislative Building, enclosing the courtyard. As construction was underway, on 1 September men repairing galvanised roofing on the west wing accidentally sparked a fire that eventually destroyed the interior of that part of the edifice, including the legislative library. It then took until 1912 for repairs and reconstructions to be made, and the new wing to be completed. In 2016, in response to the 2014 Parliament Hill Attack, then Speaker Dave Levac announced the establishment of an Armed Response Unit within the Legislative Security Service (the precursor to the LPS), and some members were armed with handguns. At present, the LPS consists of Security Officers and Peace Officers who provide a full range of in house security services to the Legislative Precinct. Security Officers, also referred to as Protective Service Officers, are detection and screening specialists who maintain a safe and secure environment within the Legislative Precinct and ensure that all visitors are screened before entering. Peace Officers of the LPS are responsible for the safety and security of MPPs, Legislative Assembly employees, visitors to the Legislature and the Precinct itself. LPS Peace Officers are armed and have full policing powers, enabling them to enforce legislation such as the Highway Traffic Act, the Provincial Offences Act, and the Criminal Code of Canada, and are subject to the mandate of the Special Investigations Unit. In early 2021, a new Visitors’ Centre located at the southwest side of the Assembly building was completed, acting as a single, accessible point of entry for all visitors to be screened before entering the building.