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BASIC SCIENCE TEACHES us that if you turn up the heat under a pot of standing water, it can be transformed into a boiling mass. Time to turn up the heat on Vandal-in-Chief Premier Doug Ford and unleash a boiling mass of anger and resistance to his attacks on the city he hates. The latest outrage is his bullshit shuttering of the beloved Ontario Science Centre (OSC), a cornerstone of the underserved Thorncliffe and Flemingdon Park communities.

The “crisis” that led to the OSC’s closing is manufactured through planned neglect, all to meet Ford’s secret agenda. It’s one we can assume is designed to help his development industry friends as the soon-to-be-subway-and-LRT-serviced neighbourhood goes from being ignored and defamed to desirable to his mega-project building pals.

What kind of uncaring monster cancels an entire summer’s worth of kids’ camp programs at the OSC just as school gets out to slam through his developer-friendly agenda — all around bogus concerns around snowfall? It’s the same kind of person who fences off the cleanest, most easy-to-access downtown public beach — at Ontario Place — as we head into summer. Must be nice to have that sweet cottage you’re always bragging about, eh Dougie? Too bad for the rest of the city. Guess they should have been born rich like you; bad planning, I suppose.

Much like the impossible-to-understand rush to destroy public space at Ontario Place we have to assume — hope? — that, like Ford’s sleazy and probably criminal Greenbelt deals that public pressure ultimately stopped, the OSC and Ontario Place deals will also be the subject of criminal investigation and, hopefully, prosecutions someday.

It seems very likely Ford is a crook; we certainly know he is a liar, and we definitely know that he hates the city that rejected him for mayor and is “too lefty” for his liking. But we also know Ford is a vote-chasing opportunist who will back down and reverse himself if he thinks it will cost him votes. Hell, it’s even part of his brand. In those gross, almost ironic commercials he plastered all over the Stanley Cup broadcasts, he actually boasts that when “The People” complain and tell him he makes mistakes, he listens and changes his plan.

It’s a virtual invitation to organize, agitate and make sure the generational disaster that would be the closing of the Science Centre and the levelling of Ontario Place for a private spa does not happen. When parents of autistic children stood up to Ford early in his term, he was forced to back down. The list of Ford “back downs” is massive with the Greenbelt capitulation one of the more recent — and essential — successes.

The fight is not over. Ford trades in hopelessness, but we need to rally behind hope. Ford himself is showing yet again no deal is a done deal, no contract ironclad, as he scrambles to blow at least $250 million — more than enough to fix the OSC — buying his way out of an “ironclad” deal with The Beer Store a year before it expires so he can grab votes by unleashing a wave of booze into our corner stores in time for the next election.

Imagine if citizens hadn’t successfully stood up to then-Progressive Conservative premier Bill Davis and insisted the Spadina Expressway not be built, which would have been a horrible asphalt gash through downtown. This would be a different city.

And it would be a different city if we let Ford and his likely criminal crew force through the disastrous vandalization of our city that the attacks on Ontario Place and the Science Centre are.

There are many ways to carry on this fight, and we encourage you to find the one that works for you. You have the power, we have the power, let’s use it to save the city from what would be criminal acts of destruction on Toronto.

Signatures on a letter to Ford demanding he save the Science Centre grow by the thousands every hour, add your name here. There are at least two great citizens groups fighting for both Ontario Place and the OSC. They are Ontario Place for All and Save Ontario’s Science Centre. Follow them and help out when you can. Show up at demonstrations, the details of which will be at nextmag.ca.

Call Ford’s office and complain: 416-325-1941. These calls are tracked and have more impact than you might think. Encourage your friends and family outside the GTA to complain to their local, likely PC, MPPs and let them know these attacks on the province’s biggest city are unacceptable. Empower and support local politicians who are fighting for the city, including MPPs Chris Glover and Marit Stiles and city councillors Ausma Malik, Josh Matlow and more. Mayor Olivia Chow “took a knee” on the Ontario Place fight to get a highway deal, but she seems ready to help lead the fight to save the Science Centre. Let’s keep the pressure up for action.

As a great man once said, “I’m as mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore.” Neither should you. Let’s take back Toronto.