Transport Committee on June 4th, 2009

[Toby Lennox]

Absolutely. In fact, when we built the airport, we did three things. One, there are portions of the airport--and I would be delighted to have any members of the transportation committee come down and have a look--where we actually built an entire service level that you never see and that is dedicated to mass transit. For the average individual, it's rather boring, because it's rows and rows and rows of roads and curbs, but what it represents is the potential. Therefore, now that we've finished building, we are reaching out to the transit system to fill up those curbs.

The other thing we did was actually build the station already for the downtown train. It's already there, as are the caissons that will accept the train when it comes. I am afraid I can't do much about moving the airport closer to downtown, but by virtue of these efforts, we are trying to bring the two together. So absolutely, it was something we did consider.

[Colin Mayes, Conservative, Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

One of the things with our government is that we look to the provinces to give us the priorities that they set. And I think it's important that you communicate those types of things with your provincial leaders that you want to see that line put in place. So I think that's the important message here.

What are the passenger levels at the Toronto airport?

[Toby Lennox]

We handle about 32 million passengers a year, 85,000 a day.

The traffic has dropped off, as is to be anticipated at this time. Our domestic traffic is down fairly considerably, about 6% to 7%. Transborder traffic is way down.

What is most interesting for me is that international traffic, especially to Asia, remains very robust. It's dropping off, but it's an indication of the changing society we have. Toronto is so multicultural now, as is Canada, that demand for travel to the East is considerable.

[Colin Mayes, Conservative, Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

It's interesting. I've spent some time in Japan, and of course the Tokyo station handles 850,000 people a day, and yet Narita, which is their international airport, is actually a ways away. So it isn't necessary that the hub has to be where the airport is, as long as that feeder line is there. I think it's important that is planned.

I'd like to direct a question to Mr. Fitzgerald before we finish up here. I live on the west side of the Rockies, and we don't get winter on that side and you do on the east side of the Rockies. I've found that out since I've been an MP here. The controls that you install for the ETCS systems, have you put those in place in Russia, for instance, or places where there are colder climates? And does that affect the reliability of those systems?

[Kevin Fitzgerald]

Yes, we have. We've installed systems in Finland in the Finnish National Railway, and it's fairly cold in the interior of Finland. So yes, we have.

[Colin Mayes, Conservative, Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Is it any more challenging as far as--

[Kevin Fitzgerald]

No. The equipment is designed from the start to live and endure in inhospitable climates.

[Colin Mayes, Conservative, Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Okay. I'll let everybody get away to go home.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

I was going to open the floor up for one more round of two minutes if anybody wants it, so please be brief.

[Maria Minna, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

I'll be very brief.

Mr. Lennox, as I was listening to you earlier, I understood your argument that in the interim, while we're planning potentially fast trains, of course the airline and other transit industries would have to be looking to see what that looked like down the road. What sort of timeframe would you be looking at? I'm thinking probably one of the busiest corridors would be Windsor-Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal-Quebec City. That's a fairly heavily travelled route. And I presume that at the completion of the high-speed rail, if someone could travel to Ottawa from Toronto by rail in two hours--me included, for that matter--they would come by rail. I would not use an airplane, which means that could potentially cut down a huge amount of travel. It's great for the environment and all that, but I understand what that would do to aviation in that area.

What would that do, obviously not just to the airlines in that area, but to the airport itself in terms of declining numbers? And how do we synch those two to make sure that somehow the airlines and the airport are planning and reach that situation around the same time? It's not an easy balance to maintain.

[Toby Lennox]

No, it isn't. We would be misguided if we were to think we'd all arrive at that happy place at the same time.

The growth projections we are looking at for Pearson airport would take us to 50 million passengers some time in 2030. Now, at 50 million passengers that is really our airfields at capacity and our terminals at capacity. I think some of you would recall what Terminal 1 used to be like. It's a Gong Show, approaching 60 million passengers, but we could do that.

We have the planning tools in place that allow us to calibrate as we go forward when our next stages of development have to happen. So in fact if we were talking about 3.5 million passengers and assume half of that has dropped off, and we're assuming a growth rate of 3% per year, we can actually factor that in to the planning that we would do for building the facilities.

The question is how much lead time are we actually going to be giving to a project like this, and what is the underpinning policy rationale for doing it? If we're going to try to cobble it together very late in the day and thereby sacrifice the intermodality from both a financial perspective and from a systems perspective, we're going to fail.

My point is, start doing that now. Start looking at what those projections are saying and say we're going to make a commitment to it. I can factor that into my planning, as can Air Canada.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Ms. Chow, have you any comment?

Mr. Jean, for one minute.

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB]

Thank you for your attendance today, Mr. Lennox.

I was impressed to hear all of your testimony, gentlemen, and I was especially pleased to hear Ms. Chow talk about her concern and worries about air transportation to smaller communities in Canada. Especially with regard to C-310, a private member's bill, I've heard from 20 to 30 airlines that fly in and out of Canada, especially our national carriers, that in essence they simply won't book flights in the wintertime into smaller communities such as Gander, Newfoundland, for instance, and other places, like the Northwest Territories, Yukon, Nunavut, Fort Chipewyan, and my constituency, Smithers, B.C., and North Bay, Ontario. Places like that just won't get flights any more because they can't deal with the large cost that Bill C-310 is going to impose upon them.

Is that what you're hearing from your members as well?

[Toby Lennox]

Let me say first that we are spending a great deal and an increasing period of time being concerned about the type of service we deliver to our passengers, but we do operate in a highly complex and, quite frankly, operationally difficult world, especially at times in the winter.

I have grave concerns that Bill C-310 is talking about adding additional burdens where the impact of it is probably uncertain, unknown, and possibly negative. I think you're right, but that doesn't take away from the concerns you have about access to the smaller centres. Canada's north is founded on aviation, so we have to be quite concerned about the continued viability of that.

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB]

I've heard specifically from our large airlines that they're not going to fly into Newfoundland any more. I have a huge number of constituents from Newfoundland, and that greatly concerns me. Is that what your members are saying as well? Are those kinds of concerns--

[Toby Lennox]

The airlines are looking at increased costs across the board. I wouldn't want to speak for them as to what they may cut out or not. Economic impacts tend to result in a decrease or a degradation of service, so I'm afraid that I'd be concerned that Bill C-310 would go in that direction.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Thank you. I have to end it there.

I appreciate your time and your spending the extra time with us today, and we appreciate your presentations.

Thank you to the committee.

Just for information, on Tuesday we have three potential guests. We are just confirming, but we will commence at the regular time.

Thank you, everyone. Have a great weekend.