Bonnie Lysyk Auditor General of Ontario 20 Dundas Street West, 15th Floor Box 105 Toronto, Ontario M5G 2C2 Thursday, May 29, 2014 Dear Auditor: I am writing to request that you conduct an audit of the secret payment of $317 million to bail out private property owners and the MaRS Discovery District. It appears that as a result of the MaRS Discovery District’s inability to rent out space, and pay its bills, the MaRS Discovery District is being purchased by the Crown, and will be used by OPS staff. It raises a number of questions I hope you can answer: Did the Crown have an expressed need for new office space? Did the Crown pay a fair price for MaRS? Was the purchase of MaRS Discovery District a sound financial decision? What is the full cost of this bailout? Was this a good deal or a bad deal for Ontario families? Was the original structural of the deal in the best interests of taxpayers or did it unduly apportion risk and reward in a way that favoured private interests? Internal documents show meetings and briefings took place after Kathleen Wynne had dissolved the legislature. Were there decisions made, who made them, and was this appropriate? Ontarians deserve to know the full cost of the government’s election-eve decision to bail out the MaRS building, and whether or not the government exercised due diligence in its negotiations, and whether the government has any financial justification for agreement. Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter. Gilles Bisson