Transport Committee on Feb. 5th, 2008

[The Chair (Mr. Mervin Tweed (Brandon—Souris, CPC)), Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Good morning, everyone. Welcome to meeting number 11 of the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities.

Pursuant to the order of reference of Tuesday, December 4, 2007, we are examining Bill C-23, an act to amend the Canada Marine Act, the Canada Transportation Act, the Pilotage Act, and other acts in consequence.

Joining us today, from the Community Airport Impact Review, is Mr. Bill Freeman. As individuals, we have Mr. Adam Vaughan and Mr. Brian Iler.

I will advise the committee that we have the minister coming at twelve, so I will stop the proceedings short of twelve o'clock so that we can have the full hour with the minister, as I presume most of the members of the committee want.

The witnesses here today have been advised that because of the time restrictions, we are asking them to make a three- to four-minute presentation; then we will do the question-and-answer segment around the table as time permits.

I don't know whether the witnesses have picked an order in which they would like to speak, but we will start with Mr. Vaughan. You have four minutes.

[Adam Vaughan, As an Individual]

My name is Adam Vaughan. I am a city councillor from the city of Toronto and represent one of the waterfront wards in that city.

We're going to be speaking today about some of the concerns we have about how this policy impacts the city of Toronto from a variety of perspectives. More importantly, we are also going to be speaking—and you might be surprised to hear this from a local politician, in particular one from Toronto—about the worry we have that making Toronto accessible to these funds will not be a good thing for the city.

We would rather you spent this federal money in other cities and other jurisdictions. It is not something you hear often from cities; it's not something you hear often from the city of Toronto. But to finance our port, which is a port in name only, is to do so to the detriment and the harm of other ports across the country that actually need the strategic investment to facilitate international trade and local economic development.

The city of Toronto's port is really internal to the local economy of Toronto. There are three main things that arrive by ship, and three things only. There is sugar, for a sugar refinery on the waterfront that is largely a throwback to an industrial era when we had a significant distillery and beer manufacturing based in the downtown core. That doesn't exist any more, and the sugar, if it weren't for cheap Cuban sugar, probably wouldn't exist in Toronto either; nonetheless, it survives. It is adequately served by the odd ship that comes through and it doesn't require a massive infrastructure and delivery of dollars from Ottawa to sustain its activities.

The other two things that come are salt for our roads, which is cheaper to ship by water—but if the port were to disappear tomorrow, I can assure you that the salt would still arrive some way, by rail or by truck—and aggregate and gravel for the construction industry, again for the healthy downtown building boom we currently have underway. Again, if the port weren't there.... Other cities across this country somehow manage to get gravel and sand and aggregate into their communities for construction mixing.

The really serious components of this lie in the lack of accountability of the Toronto Port Authority. For many years while the Liberals governed, no federal appointments were made to the port authority. It ran without a city of Toronto appointment. We have refused to appoint and we refuse to acknowledge the authority that this agency has over our waterfront. The federal government didn't appoint the five federal members, and it ran with a single provincial member making all the decisions on behalf of the federal infrastructure program. That was it. That was somehow deemed to be accountable and proper management of a port authority.

Since the Tories have taken office, we have had a series of appointments, and my colleagues will speak to that. But Toronto refuses to appoint and acknowledge the authority of this port authority upon a non-existent port in the city of Toronto.

It doesn't move anything. The container ships that you think come and drop off the containers.... Those containers are empty. They don't even arrive by water; they arrive by truck and are there for the port authority to practise loading and unloading the non-existent boats. This is not a port. It really isn't a port.

But there are some other problems here. For example, I've been on council for a year, and twice already I've ended up in court courtesy of the port authority, one time for wanting to build a sidewalk next to a public school on the waterfront. They deemed that the federal agency's need for a parking lot trumped the local responsibility we had to get kids to and from the neighbourhood to their local school. So they've taken us to court, forbidding us from building a sidewalk next to a public school and a community centre. They said if they don't get their way on this issue, they'll tear up the local neighbourhood park, because they have an easement across it to build a bridge, which they are no longer going to be building. It's absurd.

There are other problems as well. These have to do basically with the situation that sees two competing federal investments on the waterfront in contradiction with one another. The federal port authority will move if you give it the ability to raise money, to not spend on the harbour wall.... The harbour wall is collapsing in Toronto, and they refuse to repair it. They refuse to even acknowledge ownership of the harbour wall. They say it's not their business to maintain the harbour wall. This is the port authority speaking.

If you fund these sorts of initiatives and if you give access to federal infrastructure dollars for transportation to the port authority, what do we tell the TTC? What do we tell the trucking companies in Ontario that can't get through the gridlock in Toronto?

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Mr. Vaughan.

[Adam Vaughan]

I'll just wrap up.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Very briefly.

[Adam Vaughan]

What do we tell the trucking companies in Ontario that can't get through the gridlock in Toronto? Do we tell them that their money will now be used by a non-existent port authority to finance non-existent business models in a situation that has only incurred debt in the name of Canada and is run completely contrary and in contradictory ways to the will of the people of the city?

I ask you not to include Toronto as a port authority any longer, not to include federal appointments—

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Mr. Vaughan, I'll have to interrupt you there.

[Adam Vaughan]

—and not to allow access to federal dollars.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

I realize everybody has a lot to say, but we are on limited time and I would ask that you respect the chair.

Mr. Freeman, you have four minutes.

[Bill Freeman, Director, Community Airport Impact Review]

I come from a group called Community Air, which is a community group made up mainly of people who live in the downtown core. We have particularly focused on the Toronto Island airport, which has been, frankly, a tremendous difficulty for local people.

I recognize that most members don't come from Toronto, but this airport has been the biggest and most intense political controversy in the city of Toronto certainly for the last five years, and it's a problem that has gone on now for at least two decades.

Essentially, this airport is within two kilometres of the downtown financial core of the city. What's happening is that Toronto's waterfront is being renewed, regenerated. Billions of dollars of public and private money are going into the regeneration of the waterfront. People are very enthusiastic about that. I can say thank you to the federal government for participating in this, but I can't say thank you for the Toronto Port Authority, which has used its authority to build and expand an airport.

It is the expansion of this airport that is the huge problem. It used to be a rinky-dink little airport. Now, with the current plans, the plan is to have up to 20 aircraft operating out of this airport. It's going to be not only the pollution, the safety, the traffic, all of those attendant issues, but the real problem here—well, one of the problems—is that the Toronto Port Authority has used its power under the Canada Marine Act to avoid, essentially, local control and local planning, which in the province of Ontario is the responsibility of the municipal government. The municipal government gives us local control.

David Miller, the current mayor of Toronto, in 2003, when he ran the first time for mayor, won the election largely on this issue. His slogan—I can see the signs in front of me right today—was “No island airport expansion”. The controversy at that time was around the bridge to the island airport. The bridge was cancelled, but the port authority, using its power, has gone ahead and expanded this airport despite the clear wishes of the people of the city of Toronto.

Incidentally, polling that has been done showed, in 2003, 60% or more of the people were opposed to this.

So the structure of the Canada Marine Act is the problem, as far as we're concerned. We would like to see control returned to the City of Toronto on the whole issue of planning. That's where it should be. That's where citizens can have their input and deal with it as citizens see fit—that's it.

I'm going to stop at that point. I'm certainly open to questions. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Thank you, Mr. Freeman.

Mr. Iler, you have four minutes.

[Brian Iler, As an Individual]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, members of the committee.

Ten years ago the Government of Canada made a serious mistake, a mistake that has had devastating consequences to the city of Toronto and its citizens. That mistake was to include the Toronto port in the list of port authorities under the Canada Marine Act.

That act has two significant fundamental criteria for ports: they must be of strategic significance to Canada's trade, and they must be and are likely to remain financially self-sufficient.

Mr. Chair, neither of these criteria has been satisfied by the port authority. They were not satisfied then. As Mr. Vaughan has pointed out, this is not a port of national significance to trade in any way, and this port has never been self-sufficient. It has relied on handouts. It has relied on dissipation of its assets.

One of the features of the Canada Marine Act is an effort to achieve some level of accountability to the citizens of Toronto and the users of the port, by requiring that at least four of the directors of the port authority be representative of users of the port.

I tell you today that under the Liberal government no appointments were made to fill vacancies from port users. In fact, as Mr. Vaughan has pointed out, the board of directors was allowed, under the Liberal government, to dwindle down to one person. There is no accountability when one person, who is a lawyer, a nice person, appointed by the provincial government, is responsible for everything that goes on.

Unfortunately, the Conservative government has made things, if possible, worse. They have appointed people to the port authority who have no relation to the users of the port, none whatsoever, contrary to the requirements of the Canada Marine Act. We're boggled by that.

Where is the accountability? We have five appointees now from the federal government, one from the city, vacant because the city will not participate in this sham, and one from the Province of Ontario. This is not a port of national significance. The port should not be controlled by federal government appointees. The port should be controlled by a majority of appointees from the city of Toronto, local control, where control belongs on a port of local significance only.

It is my submission that the act be amended to require that the board of directors of the port authority be comprised of five appointees from the city of Toronto and one each from the province and the federal government.

If this mistake had not been made ten years ago, we know what would have happened. We would not have seen the necessity for the federal government to pay an ill-advised $35 million of taxpayers' money. The City of Toronto would not have been sued, with the resultant obligation to pay $48 million out of hard-earned city taxpayer money. I and Mr. Freeman would not have been sued by the port authority. Mr. Vaughan would not be currently sued by the port authority.

This port authority is out of control, ungovernable, and unaccountable.

Mr. Chair, your committee can solve this problem, can remedy this mistake so that we can look forward to this termination of governance by the port authority of our port, to the return of the island airport lands to the city, and contemplate a truly spectacular development in replacement of that airport.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Thank you, Mr. Iler.

We'll now go to questions.

Mr. Volpe, you have seven minutes.

[Joe Volpe, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I apologize to colleagues and witnesses for Air Canada's great delay in getting its passengers here and to this airport. I should have used a different one.

Mr. Freeman, can I read something to you? I caught all of your presentation. You issued a retraction and an apology to the Toronto Port Authority. Let me just quote it for the record. It says:

The memo and associated commentary on the web-site made statements about the Toronto Port Authority, its officers and directors, and in particular Henry Pankratz, Lisa Raitt and Alan Paul which reflect adversely on their competence, honesty, responsibility, and regard for the law. We acknowledge that there is no foundation for those statements, and that they should not have been made, nor circulated. We further acknowledge that there was no improper motive in the bringing of this lawsuit. We unreservedly retract these statements and apologize sincerely to the Toronto Port Authority, its officers and directors, and in particular to Henry Pankratz, Lisa Raitt, and Alan Paul.

You are a signatory to that, as I think is Mr. Brian Iler.

[Bill Freeman]

That's correct.

[Joe Volpe, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Tell me, did something else happen between the time of that apology and today, something that causes you to repeat the same kinds of accusations and defamations?

[Bill Freeman]

We have not repeated those accusations, Mr. Volpe. First of all, the members should know that this became a very heated debate and some statements were made that we regret. That's what the apology was about. We have not changed....

[Joe Volpe, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Are they the same ones you made today, Mr. Freeman?

[Bill Freeman]

From that day to this, we have not changed our opposition to the island airport expansion. That's the key issue, and it continues to this very day.

[Joe Volpe, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Mr. Freeman, that may be your key issue. We're dealing with Bill C-23. We were considering amendments. The chairman quite generously allowed individuals to come forward. You're appearing as an individual, but you claim that you are a member of a community in Toronto that is very much.... By the way, I live in Toronto as well.

[Bill Freeman]

And I live in Toronto, yes.

[Joe Volpe, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Good. But how many people does your organization represent?

[Bill Freeman]

I said 2,000 people. That's about right.

[Joe Volpe, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Those are....

[Bill Freeman]

Those are people who receive our newsletters. We hold meetings. Maybe 2,000 people do not show up, but a significant number of people come.