Toronto should formally demand that Premier Doug Ford’s government repeal the legislation that gave power to take over city land as part of its ill-fated plan to expand Billy Bishop airport, according to Mayor Olivia Chow.
Although the federal government pulled the plug on Ford’s island airport proposal last week, the future of the facility will be up for debate at this week’s city council meeting after Chow and Deputy Mayor Ausma Malik introduced an urgent motion pushing for the repeal of Ontario’s Bill 110, the Building Billy Bishop Airport Act.
Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government “listened to the thousands of Torontonians who raised their concerns” about the proposed expansion, which would have extended the runways by more than 600 metres and allowed jets to operate on the waterfront, reads the text of the motion.
It states that with the plan “no longer moving forward,” Ford’s government “must return the city’s land so we can get on with the work of building the waterfront Torontonians deserve.” The motion asserts that the lands identified in Bill 110 for potential expropriation by Ontario “belong to the residents of Toronto” and “we need the province to repeal their legislation.”
Ford’s government introduced the bill in April, and it received royal assent June 2. It would allow Queen’s Park to take over swathes of sensitive property near the airport, including much of the Toronto Islands and Little Norway Park on the shoreside of the facility, in exchange for “fair compensation.”
The law also removed the city from the tripartite agreement that governs the airport, and enabled the province to take its place. The other two signatories to the agreement, which was initially signed in 1983, are the federal government and the Toronto Port Authority, which is a federally mandated agency that supported the expansion.
A spokesperson for Ontario Transportation Minister Prabmeet Sarkaria declined to answer questions about Chow and Malik’s motion on Monday, referring the Star to the government’s previous statement on the airport.
That statement, issued by Sarkaria after news broke Friday that Carney’s government wouldn’t support the expansion, didn’t concede the issue had been settled.
“We look forward to continuing to work to advance the expansion of Billy Bishop Airport,” the minister wrote. He said an upgraded airport would contribute up to $8.5 billion to Canada’s economy annually, create thousands of jobs, and give more options to millions of air travellers.
The province has not released detailed plans for the proposed $5-billion expansion, and critics at council and in opposition at Queen’s Park have questioned the government’s projections of its benefits.
Norm Di Pasquale, the program manager of advocacy group NoJetsTO, said as long as the province’s bill remains on the books there will be a “sword of Damocles hanging over Toronto Islands and Little Norway Park,” and the popular public spaces will be left “in some weird state of limbo where the province can expropriate them as they wish.”
He argued restoring the city to the tripartite agreement and rescinding the province’s designs for expropriation are “crucial steps to make sure that Torontonians’ voices and concerns are heard” on the future of the airport.
Council’s meeting begins Wednesday and is scheduled for at least two days.
