I don't see the Canadian side of the fall in quite as poor a light as some here.
Lets be clear, there's much room for improvement.
But you do have the Shaw Festival in nearby Niagara-on-the-Lake, you do have the wineries and the Butterfly conservatory, and you do have 2 decent sized amusement parks nearby (Marineland and Darien Lake on the U.S. side), there are several nice hotels; not 5 star, but hardly backwards motels.
In winter, the Festival of Lights is actually quite good and one of the larger scale Christmas displays in North America.
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Let's also keep in mind, a lot more development is coming down the pipe in the falls, housing for tens of thousands more, and lots more retail, amongst other things.
Take a look at Paradise Walk that's coming up...
https://www.retail-insider.com/retai...kind-in-canada
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Now, about making it better.
The biggest thing is that it has to have more ability to draw in order to justify more high-end attractions.
That's about transportation links to Toronto first and foremost.
GO Train service on weekends, 4 trips per day has just been made year round.
But connections on weekdays remain poor.
Once GO Service is 6x per day (every 2 hours) every day of the week you'll see a noticeable increase in traffic and greater investment will follow.
Regional Transit will also be key for people coming into the Falls from Toronto, by train.
That is on its way, but will have to be substantially better than what's in place now.
Once that's done, the next step is really tacking Marineland which is hopelessly dated and under utilized in terms of its potential.
Marineland has over 1,000 acres of land, and shifting it from marine/animal park to something more 'Six Flags/Cedar Fair' would be a substantial attraction.
The central part of town could certainly use something more substantial in fine dining and shopping and I think that's do-able if you can get base traffic up about 25%, with growth potential of 50-100%.
I think a good deal of that is likely incoming, but it will depend on some decisions not yet taken.