EDITOR’S NOTE: This article originally appeared on The Trillium, a Village Media website devoted to covering provincial politics at Queen’s Park.
If the last few years haven’t made it one already, Therme is on its way to becoming a household name in Ontario.
The “Austrian spa company” — as opponents like calling it — has a nearly clear path to building its Ontario Place spa and waterpark.
On the verge of redeveloping what’s been called a provincial “crown jewel,” the company has come a long way since 2017, the year of its arrival in Canada. Despite the spotlight shone on Therme Canada in recent years, very little has emerged about who’s been at its helm.
The Trillium looks into some of the key ways a Conservative stalwart has supported the company and more about how it’s operated, including for years without a single full-time employee.
Half a dozen years before Therme Group entered Canada, Robert Hanea formed the company.
Hanea, who holds a doctorate in laws from Comenius University of Bratislava, in Slovakia, remains CEO and chairman of the company, which is a subsidiary of A-Heat Allied Heat Exchange, a Vienna-based conglomerate specializing in engineering heat systems.
Therme Group completed its flagship facility — Therme Bucharest, a massive spa on the outskirts of the Romanian capital — in 2016. It set its sights on a vast international expansion around the same time, and Canada caught its attention.
Hanea incorporated two Therme companies in Canada on Feb. 23, 2017, with longtime national sports executive Pierre Lafontaine as the sole other director listed on the businesses’ original registration filings.
Lafontaine’s role with Therme Canada was largely symbolic, according to multiple sources who either worked or dealt with the company. The former Swimming Canada CEO also provided the company advice on aquatics, a spokesperson for Therme Canada said, before stepping away from it around the time he moved to China to coach its national swimming team last year.
Hanea has been the closest thing to Therme’s face in Canada.
Behind the scenes, Leslie Noble — who is something of an icon in Conservative politics in Ontario — has been an important figure for the company for a few years. She’ll soon be joining Therme Canada as a director, as well.
Noble was one of the co-authors of Mike Harris’ Common Sense Revolution and managed the Progressive Conservative Party’s campaign that rode that platform into power in 1995. In 1999, she helped Harris win his second majority, and she has run or advised many more Conservative electoral efforts since.
A few months after Harris’ PCs’ election in 1995, Noble co-founded StrategyCorp, quickly building it into one of the province’s leading lobbying firms.
During Harris’ premiership, Noble was known as one of the province’s most powerful Conservatives.
One way her lobbying work consequentially — and controversially — intersected with Harris’ premiership was around casinos.
Harris’ government permitted the expansion of casinos in Ontario, including allowing the first in Niagara Falls to open. A flood of interest from casino companies, including specifically in Niagara Falls, soon followed, leading the city to develop its reputation as one of Canada’s top gambling destinations.
Noble did work for a number of casino companies in the late 1990s, including multiple the Harris government awarded a contract to run the first Niagara Falls casino, the Toronto Star reported at the time. Harris’ government’s implementation of Ontario’s lobbying law in 1998 was partly spurred by criticism over Noble’s lobbying for casino companies, according to the Star's reporting.
Therme hired StrategyCorp in 2018 to give strategic advice to support the company’s proposal for Kathleen Wynne’s Liberals’ attempted Ontario Place redevelopment. Time ran out on Wynne’s Liberals, however. The 2018 provincial election arrived before they found the "anchor tenant" they were looking for. Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservatives cruised to victory that June.
Ford immediately canned the Liberals’ Ontario Place plans before promising six months later to re-launch his own.
Before the end of 2018, Noble introduced the spa-builder to the Toronto International Film Festival, Therme Canada’s spokesperson said. She sat on TIFF’s board of directors from 2016 to 2022.
TIFF and Therme announced a 10-year partnership to promote art and film in Toronto in August 2021. Two years into the agreement, after criticism of Therme’s plan at Ontario Place escalated, TIFF’s CEO disclosed it was ”pausing” their partnership.
TIFF’s spokesperson didn’t respond to questions emailed to them by The Trillium before this story was published. Simon Bredin, Therme Canada’s spokesperson, said Noble wasn’t involved in any partnership decisions TIFF made with the company.
StrategyCorp’s work for Therme expanded to include lobbying after Ford’s PCs’ election. Noble and John Perenack, another of StrategyCorp’s principals, were among a handful of lobbyists from the firm who registered for Therme by mid-2019.
The summer of 2019 would be critical to shaping the future of Ontario Place (as part two of The Trillium’s Therme Canada series will expand on).
The Ford government launched its Ontario Place call for development on May 28, 2019. It included a de facto lobbying ban. “No communication with (provincial) government staff or appointed officials is permitted during the call for development process,” it stated.
As a result, Noble, Perenack and StrategyCorp’s lobbyists deregistered to lobby the provincial government for Therme. In response to questions from The Trillium, Noble said her “political background was irrelevant for the purposes of this process.”
StrategyCorp lobbyists remained active for Therme at the municipal level, as did another lobbyist the company hired: Amir Remtulla.
Remtulla, who worked with Ford and his late brother during their Toronto City Council days, including as chief-of-staff to Rob Ford while he was mayor, has been one of the most prolific lobbyists in Ontario since the PCs came into power.
Therme Canada submitted its Ontario Place redevelopment proposal on Sept. 24, 2019, the Ford government’s extended deadline, according to the company’s spokesperson. In total, 34 proposals were submitted.
The Ford government approved its original Ontario Place redevelopment plan, selecting Therme as its main partner, in May 2020. It invited the company to begin negotiating their agreement in July of that year, Therme Canada's spokesperson said.
By the time the Ford government selected Therme, Noble’s and StrategyCorp’s work for the company had been on what they were originally hired for — providing strategic advice — she said. The spa-builder’s “European leadership team led the core aspects of the project,” while StrategyCorp “provided local professional services” to support its bid, Perenack added in a response to The Trillium.
At that time, it’d still be almost two more years before Therme Canada hired its first full-time employee.
“Prior to (February 2022), Therme Group worked with a team of engineers, consultants and lawyers who supported the development of the bid and subsequently negotiated both the term sheet and the lease agreement,” Bredin said.
According to Perenack, StrategyCorp’s work with Therme hasn’t been unusual compared to the services it’s provided to other clients that are new entrants to Canada.
“It's quite common for StrategyCorp’s team to support new entrants to the Canadian market with on-the-ground resources prior to those companies hiring teams in the country,” Perenack said. “(Myself) and the firm have several other clients we support in this way.”
Other services Perenack said StrategyCorp has provided Therme include project management, communications — "as permitted after the competitive bidding process" — and community, First Nations, and stakeholder engagement.
In late 2020, Noble transitioned from a principal of StrategyCorp to a senior adviser. She deregistered for all of her lobbying clients within a few months, except for Therme.
Since then, Noble’s consultant role with Therme has “grown to include an advisory and strategy role… which includes chairing a global strategy committee, advising the CEO (Hanea) on expansion matters, and assisting with the scale-up of Therme Canada,” Bredin said.
Noble doesn’t have a financial stake in Therme, she added.
The company’s Ontario Place redevelopment is set to be entirely funded by it and its parent company, according to its spokesperson. “There are no other investors or funders at this time,” he added.
On July 30, 2021, Ford and others announced its Ontario Place redevelopment partners at a news conference held at the site.
“Our global team, which will soon include Canadian executive management, has its full commitment and attention devoted to Ontario Place,” Hanea said in a pre-recorded video played at the announcement.
Noble and other StrategyCorp lobbyists re-registered to lobby the provincial government for Therme beginning in November 2021.
Therme Canada hired its first full-time employee in February 2022, its spokesperson said.
Several well-placed sources have told The Trillium that crisis communications firm Navigator has also provided services to Therme. Neither Navigator nor Therme Canada confirmed nor denied this. Therme Canada’s spokesperson said Navigator hadn’t lobbied for it, as it sometimes does for its clients.
The Ford government approved its lease with Therme on April 20, 2022, the auditor general wrote in a December 2023 report. The agreement will allow Therme to operate at Ontario Place for up to 95 years, and require the province to add new parking within 650 metres of Therme’s facility.
The government plans to build 2,000 new parking spaces, which the Ministry of Infrastructure estimated could cost around $307 million. The province intended to build an underground parking garage at Ontario Place before Ford and Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow struck a deal last November stipulating they’d “establish an alternative parking solution at Exhibition Place,” the waterfront area just north of Ontario Place.
Therme’s role in redeveloping Ontario Place has attracted controversy for various reasons — including because it’ll further privatize access to the site, require hundreds of trees be cut down, and critics believe it prompted the Ontario Science Centre’s relocation. Taxpayers will also cover the cost of building new parking.
The plan’s inclusion of new parking wasn’t revealed until almost a year-and-a-half after the Ford government announced its original redevelopment partners.
“Participants should consider the adequacy of parking for their development concept,” the government’s 2019 call for development document said, while also noting proponents should specify any “parking… requirements.”
In June 2023, Infrastructure Ontario’s CEO Michael Lindsay said Therme wasn’t the only proponent that expressed a need for more parking nearby. “A significant number” of bidders expressed that more parking would be needed somewhere at Ontario Place or Exhibition Place “to suit their business needs,” added Lindsay.
The business case the province contracted to weigh the pros and cons of relocating the Ontario Science Centre to Ontario Place linked its move to providing “a comprehensive campus-wide parking solution.”
Critics of Ford’s PCs’ Ontario Place redevelopment plans have also oft-returned to suspicions about the government’s true intentions — namely in surmising that it's actually working towards placing a casino there. The belief harkens back to Ford’s and his brother’s failed attempt while on Toronto’s council to bring a casino to the city’s downtown. As the theory goes, some critics believe Therme’s planned spa and waterpark will fall apart and a casino will replace it.
The Ford government has gone to great lengths to dispel this belief. Ford himself has ruled it out. His government’s 2019 call for development also explicitly stated “casino uses will not be permitted on the site.” More recently, Infrastructure Minister Kinga Surma forbade a casino from being built at Ontario Place in a zoning order she issued to expedite the redevelopment project.
Therme has no involvement — nor interest — in the gambling industry, and Noble hasn’t since the 1990s, she said.
The company shows no signs of backing out from building its spa and waterpark at Ontario Place, as well. Therme Canada’s spokesperson called the project its “focus” at the moment.
“Therme Canada and Therme Group are in a strong financial position and able to support the project through development to completion,” Bredin, its spokesperson, said.
Therme Canada now employs 13 full-time staff, its spokesperson said, including a few of whom first crossed paths with the company while working for the provincial or municipal governments.
Its ambitions in Canada also stretch beyond Ontario Place, as part three of The Trillium's Therme Canada series will expand on.
