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Event date: Friday, March 20 2026
First posted: Friday, March 27 2026
I want to begin by thanking the Constituency office of MPP Billy Pang, and the staff at the Legislative Assembly of Ontario for making this tour possible.
Although the March Break Queen's Park Tour was organized through the Constituency office of MPP Billy Pang, the tour was conducted by employees of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario, and this article maintains editorial independence free of political influence or endorsement.
My tour of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario building, commonly referred to as Queen’s Park, began on a cold and icy morning - it really wasn’t much fun waiting for the bus with ice raining down. Nonetheless, my bus ride to Finch Station arrived not too late, and Line 1 was surprisingly not that busy and didn’t get hit with any delays either - really, the morning commute was a dream. I had a brief stopover at Union Station for a McDonald’s Double Espresso because I needed a caffeine boost (more on that in a supplementary article), and I resumed my journey to Queen’s Park Station not too long after.
I ended up at Queen’s Park with over an hour to spare, which wasn’t really a bad thing considering there was a bit of a visitor screening queue - I mostly sat around and caught up on emails, Discord, and some light reading until the time of the tour. Leading up to the tour, the large volume of visitors were split into 2 groups, and headed upstairs to a large room for a debrief.
The tour itself was conducted by staff members of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario, and emphasized the building’s history and significant originality to it through the decades - for example, pointing out that the west wing was mostly marble due to fire reconstruction and that the interior colour scheme was changed, but that gas lighting fixtures had been converted to electric while maintaining their original shapes/designs.
Many mentions to painted portraits and photos of former politicians who held office or constituted parliaments were made. In addition, our tour guide made mentions to elements of Canadian national or British significance, which complimented provincial elements.
As the tour advanced to the Legislative Chamber, which was not in session on the day of the tour, excitement grew around the originality, function, and programs revolving around the room. Key notes include questions about chair upholstery/originality, the stray single chair without a desk, and the text display system on the 2nd level, which was explained to be a real-time closed captioning system for the hearing impaired.
Beyond the Legislative Chamber, the Media Studio was open and unused. Though not part of the official tour, participants were able to take a peek inside, which should make for interesting comparisons between what was seen in-person vs what is in frame on TV/video.
There’s definitely more to the Queen’s Park tours than I’ve written about here, and there’s basically something for everyone - artifacts and stories for the history buffs, the building being a well-preserved time capsule for architecture enthusiasts, or educational rooms that allow roleplay with costumes & props and supplement Questions and Answers.
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