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.