Our federal government — and its Toronto MPs — are musing about enabling, advancing and approving Premier Ford’s very bad idea to massively expand the Toronto Island Airport and allow a 400 per cent increase in passenger traffic to be carried in commercial jets.
There are a lot of reasons why this would be a very bad idea. Here are our top six:
1. Jets Will Wreck our Waterfront
Toronto’s waterfront is our biggest asset — stretching from Mimico to the Scarborough Bluffs. And jets will wreck it. The Harbourfront alone attracts 18 million visitors every year. It’s our front yard and fun getaway. Expanding the runway by almost a kilometre will mean significantly less Lake Ontario to enjoy. It will impact tour boats, sailboats, kayaks and even ferries. Harbour water quality will decline because the harbour will have less connection with the lake and become stagnant. Property values and tourism will take a hit. Park land, including the beaches on Toronto Island, could be at risk from massively expanded airport terminals, runways and storage areas.
2. Jets Will Create Significant Safety and Environmental Hazards
Jets at Toronto Island Airport are a safety hazard waiting to happen. The island’s surrounding green spaces and new Biidaasige Park are home to hundreds of thousands of birds, making deadly bird strikes a very real risk. Increasing plane traffic by 400 per cent would mean that there is much more opportunity for a plane crash. More fuel trucks — which drive onto ferries to get to the Island Airport — would mean more potential for fuel spills going directly into the lake. More toxic de-icing fluids would be put into the City’s sewer system and ultimately end up in the lake. Another risk: jet blasts — winds up to 190 km/h generated both before and during takeoff at speeds powerful enough to knock over boats.
3. Jets Will Lead to More Debilitating Traffic and Fewer Affordable Homes
The proposal to increase passenger numbers by 400 per cent (from 2 million per year to 10 million per year) at the Island Airport will add huge numbers of additional cars to our downtown, making gridlock even worse. Thousands of new affordable homes planned for the new development located at Ookwemin Minising on the Portlands would be lost because they conflict with jet flight paths. For our waterfront, jets will mean more pollution, more gridlock and fewer new homes.
4. Jets Will put our Health at Risk
Jets are bad for your health. Study after study shows that they are less fuel efficient than the current turboprop (propeller-driven) planes. Jets also burn more fuel, less cleanly. Jet pollutants are linked to increased rates of cancer, asthma and bronchitis, as well as other cardiovascular and respiratory diseases. Some jet pollutants are linked to developmental problems in children. With hundreds of daily flight paths from Mimico to the Scarborough Bluffs, many Torontonians will be affected by the pollution. Climate change–causing emissions would also increase from 64,000 to 300,000 tonnes per year.
5. Jets Will Waste our Tax Dollars
We have spent billions revitalizing Toronto’s waterfront with our tax dollars — not to mention the many billions more that have come from private sector investments. Why would we want to throw that away? We have also spent $456 million in tax money to build the UP Express, and plans have been announced to spend $3 billion to build the new Waterfront East LRT. Another $129 million went toward turning Queen’s Quay into a world-class boulevard. And the ongoing revitalization of our waterfront is on track to create 100,000 jobs and $13.2 billion in economic benefits by the mid-2030s. The expansion of the Island Airport and servicing it would cost taxpayers dearly.
6. Jets Belong at Pearson Airport
Porter and Air Canada already offer jet service at Pearson Airport, so we don’t need to put jets on Toronto’s waterfront. In fact, Pearson just announced its own expansion plans, which put it on track to add nearly 20 million passengers a year by 2030. Hamilton Airport also can serve the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area (GTHA), and the federal government recently concluded another GTHA airport was not needed. Plus, the UP Express gets you from downtown Toronto to Pearson in 25 minutes flat. Toronto’s Island Airport as a boutique, regional airport is fine. What we don’t need is Pearson-by-the-Lake.
Your MP can Stop Jets at Toronto Island Airport
The federal government — including your Toronto MP — controls every aspect of the decision on whether a proposal to massively expand Toronto Island Airport goes anywhere. They promised us over a decade ago that jets would not come to Toronto’s waterfront, and they need to keep their promise.
