Stop the Billy Bishop Expansion

To our federal government, notably Prime Minister Mark Carney and Toronto's 23 Liberal Members of Parliament,

This letter is a call to action pleading for you to stop the Billy Bishop Airport expansion, as you are our city's last chance to prevent this from moving forward. Thank you for creating a public consultation until July 24th, we hope that you will take this time to truly listen to the concerns of the people. This goes beyond party politics or hypothetical revenue growth opportunities. This is demonstrative of a moment that will have generational impacts to Toronto's waterfront, our environment, our quality of life, and our autonomy.

This is the latest and one of the most impactful examples of our provincial government bypassing the opinions of Torontonians who are most affected by these sweeping changes to our communities. It is imperative that you intervene and uphold our democratic right to voice our concerns, and be heard by our elected officials.

Since 1983, the federal government has been part of the Tripartite agreement, which allows for intervention on matters of this nature impacting the Billy Bishop Airport. A 2013 proposal by Porter Airlines to expand the airport by ~200m (less than half of this proposal) was ultimately stopped in 2015 by the federal government. This demonstrates that federal intervention is possible, and has happened before. You have the power to stop this.

Some of the main concerns, raised by organizations like No Jets TO and Waterfront For All, highlight why this proposal should be stopped.

These concerns include:

• Cost → The expansion requires an approximated $5 billion investment. There have been different comments related to the potential for provincial and federal tax dollars contributing to this, or it being self-funded via the airport's business model. While we await the business plan, it remains to be seen if a project of this scale could reasonably be self-funded, meaning it is possible to eventually impact the taxpayer. This is a Toronto-based initiative that Torontonians do not want. Provincial and federal tax dollars would be much better invested in tackling larger concerns such as the housing affordability, mental health or homelessness crises, to name a few.
• Scale of Impact → Current proposals indicate an expansion of ~900m to the existing runway, which is expected to increase from 2 million passengers/year to 10 million passengers/year. The infrastructure expansions required to accommodate this concentrated increase of travellers would be costly, and increase congestion in an already traffic-ridden downtown core and highway system.
• Environmental Impact → A thorough environmental impact study was completed regarding the 2013 Porter Airline expansion proposal, which highlighted such negative impacts as noise concerns, air quality, pollution, loss of leisure activity space in the area and jet blast impacts over the water. These are just a few of the many life-altering impacts that cannot be ignored.
• Convenience to Downtown → Since the launch of the UP Express, access to downtown from Pearson has become exceptionally convenient. Business travel can accommodate the 28 minutes this reliable train offers passengers to get to the core of the city. With the opening of Line 5 and the upcoming Ontario Line, access to the rest of the city from those arriving on the UP will be even easier. Ultimately, the argument that this expansion would bring increased access to downtown is not strong enough to irreparably damage our ecosystem, community, and waterfront experience.

There is commentary from the federal government surrounding a desire to wait for a more detailed plan before decisively intervening. This is unnecessary, and the timing of such reports could risk the moment to put a stop to this. Enough is known at this moment to know this is not the path forward for Toronto.

This letter was written by Vanessa Raponi, Toronto City Councillor candidate for Ward 4 Parkdale-High Park. Vanessa is a concerned local resident, working to amplify the voice of the community that is demonstrably against this. People need to have faith in their elected officials, and we need more collaboration between our municipal, provincial and federal governments to instill trust in the political system as a whole. Please do not let us down on this critically important and necessary intervention.

Sincerely,

YOUR NAME HERE

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