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The original world’s largest rubber duck was designed by Dutch artist Florentijn Hofman. It and its replicas have floated to New York, Beijing, Baku, Los Angeles and elsewhere in the years since it came onto the scene.

The response from the art world has been, at best, mixed, with He Peng, the chief of New Millennium Center for Contemporary Art, in Hunan, telling Global Times, “I don’t think it is a valuable artistic creation to make the larger size of an existing product. And Hofman is not the first one to come up with the idea to magnify a daily thing.”

Parrell, on the other hand, says people outside the art world have responded enthusiastically.

Getting the duck to Toronto’s waterfront wasn’t easy.

The province was generous but, Parrell says, it didn’t cover all the duck-related expenses. For the Toronto appearance, despite a grant from the Ontario government, the committee had to pay thousands extra for a crane and inflation equipment to set the duck up.

However, Jeff Costen, press secretary for the office of the minister, stresses that the total grant for the Toronto portion of the tour, the RedPath Waterfront Festival, was only $121,325. He says the ministry did not allocate any funding specifically for the duck. Costen says, further, that the funding is more an investment than a cost, with every dollar triggering about $20 in visitor spending. The federal government’s Canada 150 Fund also provided funding for the anniversary tour of which the duck is a part, though none specifically earmarked for the duck.