Foundation walks away from Cochrane polar bear habitat talks, town pledges to keep attraction open

A year after a plan was hatched to save the tourist attraction, Cochrane town council is now back to square one with the polar bear habitat.

Since opening 16 years ago, the costs of running the habitat have ballooned and it's propped up with between $300,000 and $400,000 in municipal taxdollars every year.

A local foundation aimed to take it over from the municipality, but recently walked away from the negotiations.

Cochrane town councillor Desmond O'Connor says he "didn't see this coming."

"The foundation said they were going to run this and they were able to run it at no cost to the taxpayers. Once they stepped into the game they realized that wasn't possible. It isn't possible," he told council Tuesday night. 

"When it comes to passion for this habitat, the only ones who stuck around the table are mayor and council."

Cochrane Mayor Denis Clement says the foundation could not provide a financial plan for how it would operate the habitat. 

"I will not apologize and this council should not apologize and will not apologize for doing their due diligence on any project," he says. 

"The habitat will remain open and it maybe kind of just a little bit of a different model."

The polar bear habitat is one of several northern Ontario tourist attractions built with government funding in the late 1990s and early 2000s that have struggled financially.

That list includes the now demolished Shania Twain Centre in Timmins and the former Hockey Heritage North in Kirkland Lake, which is now a conference centre renamed Heritage North.

Also on Tuesday night, Kirkland Lake council was set to discuss an item dubbed "request to purchase—Heritage North" in a closed session, so no other details were made public.