In the wake of Premier Doug Ford’s takeover of the city of Toronto’s role in Billy Bishop airport, NDP Leader Marit Stiles is urging Prime Minister Mark Carney to intervene.
Lt.-Gov. Edith Dumont is expected to give royal assent to the Building Billy Bishop Airport Act on Tuesday as the legislature rises early for an extended summer break that could continue until after the October civic elections.
The legislation, which passed last Thursday, usurps the city’s responsibilities in the tripartite agreement governing Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport on the island and seizes adjacent municipal land.
“The implementation of this legislation will rip a beloved space from the public. Residents of the downtown neighbourhoods will be severely impacted by whatever Premier Ford decides to do with the Toronto Islands and the Billy Bishop Airport expansion,” Stiles wrote in a letter Monday to the prime minister.
While Queen’s Park and the Toronto Port Authority, the federal agency that owns and operates the airport, back the expansion scheme, which is opposed by Mayor Olivia Chow, Ottawa has the final say.
Carney has expressed an interest in Ford’s plan to expand the airport so commuter jets can land there, calling it “a very interesting vision” with “big possibilities there.”
But Stiles is hoping to pressure the federal Liberals, who hold 23 of Toronto’s 24 seats in the House of Commons, to thwart the changes that would see the runway extended into the harbour.
So far, there has been no apparent impact on the Grits’ political fortunes due to the airport.
Carney’s party won two Toronto byelections on April 13, including University—Rosedale, a downtown riding 1.5 kilometres from Billy Bishop where Dr. Danielle Martin received 64.3 per cent of the vote. The Liberals also won Scarborough Southwest, on the airport’s eastern flight path, with Doly Begum winning 69.6 per cent support.
Stiles insisted that’s because “the people of Ontario are just figuring out what’s going on” with the island aerodrome.
Ford, for his part shrugged off revelations that Nieuport Aviation, which bought the airport terminal from Porter Airlines in 2015, was now controlled by New York-based J.P. Morgan Asset Management Inc., as first reported by the Globe and Mail last March.
“I welcome investment from all over the world,” the premier thundered during the legislature’s morning question period.
