Evidence of meeting #115 for Transport, Infrastructure and Communities in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was airports.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Associate Professor, University of Windsor, As an Individual
Actually, the research has just begun this year. The study started in May.
Throughout the three years, we have several deliverables. The first one will be potentially released for public viewing at the end of this year. That's a very comprehensive literature review of what the problems are throughout the world and what is being done both from a technical perspective as well as from a health perspective.
NDP
Robert Aubin NDP Trois-Rivières, QC
At the end of your presentation, you said that we need the mandate to set our expectations for the future. Have you set these expectations on your end? Can you suggest any guidelines?
Associate Professor, University of Windsor, As an Individual
There's still a lot to learn. We feel that the crux of the problem, though, is that we have noise and that noise isn't going away. We have people who are being impacted negatively by this noise, but as we said, the intermediate is the annoyance associated with this. That's where we need to have a better understanding. It's the annoyance from the aircraft and the expectations that people have of the noise that are generating the complaints and some of the health impacts.
Statistically, when you look at the number of people actually impacted through annoyance, it's not nearly as high as we think. However, they're also a very vocal group with a very valid concern. This is the approach that we need to take, to tie in the subjective with the real physical aspects of the noise that's being generated.
We should look to Australia and some of the things they're doing, because this is a more holistic approach that has been very effective so far, even though it's also in the early stages.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Judy Sgro
We'll go to Mr. Hardie. Maybe you can try to get your comments in during Mr. Hardie's time.
Liberal
Ken Hardie Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
Thank you, Madam Chair, and thanks to all of you for being here.
We'll start with you, Mr. Novak, but with just a brief answer if you could, please, because I have a question for a couple of others.
Is the source of most of the complaints the area around the airport where you have the takeoffs, landings and taxiing happening or is it the flyover?
Associate Professor, University of Windsor, As an Individual
It's mostly the flyover on the approach as well as the takeoff, but more so on the approach, because it's a longer line of aircraft that are coming in. In my experience, we're talking about 40 or 50 kilometres away from the airport.
Liberal
Ken Hardie Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
Mr. Kuess, you said something quite revealing, which was that Pearson airport is surrounded. I guess this sort of bridges over to Mr. Wojcik as well. Municipal planning certainly has a role to play here. If the City of Toronto or the surrounding cities have allowed development to basically encircle the airport, that's a guarantee there's going to be conflict between people on the ground and aircraft flying over.
Given the economic importance of this, and perhaps given that if we see this growth continuing.... As you said, Mr. Wojcik, there's going to be a lot more by way of cargo, etc. Do we have to start thinking about new cargo-only facilities that are placed well away from residential areas and about putting a deal in place to prevent towns and municipalities from growing up around these facilities?
Director, Community Alliance for Air Safety
I'd love to answer that question. I think that's a tremendous idea. We've really focused it at CAAS not to make the recommendations, but to reveal the challenges and then work with the appropriate stakeholders to find the solutions. We're definitely trying to land on a postage stamp with a big envelope. It's a big problem.
In 1990 Transport Canada stated that the airport was at full capacity. The airport was originally designed as a regional airport, so there are problems with landing the aircraft in how the runways are aligned. Every other major new airport in North America is designed east-west, because that's the way the wind flows.
We have a legacy airport with a legacy footprint. It's one of the smallest footprints in all of North America. We have a lot of industrial land beside the airport, but we also have a lot of residential land, and you're not going to move that. There has to be something else. Cargo moving to another location sounds like a great idea.
Liberal
Ken Hardie Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
The better part of a month ago now, we were out studying trade corridors. It was interesting to see that, again, municipal development is allowing people to build new townhomes next to industrial areas. In fact, they're gobbling up industrial land to do it. It just seems to be counterproductive, both for quality of life on site as well as the economic vitality of the region.
Mr. Wojcik, on your comments on this, as we become a little more concerned about the effect of air travel on climate change, could we not see a gradual shift away from as much passenger travel but a maintaining of the importance of moving cargo, especially special cargos like the ones you mentioned?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Mississauga Board of Trade
There is a tremendous amount of cargo that gets moved with passenger planes today. Separating out that cargo is possible, but it may be problematic if you were to start splitting that cargo into two different airports. I agree with Mark that looking at moving cargo to other airports, other regional airports or other areas is certainly a solution well worth examining.
Today, of course, the economic hub is in southern Ontario. The economic hub centres around the city of Toronto. You can look at the number of companies that have located around the airport, and the number of freight forwarders and transport truck companies that have located around the airport. It certainly would be a long-term strategy to assist them to move to other areas in order to accommodate that request.
Liberal
Ken Hardie Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
I'll set up the question that I'll ask the next panel to get them thinking about it in the meantime.
My dog can hear me lift the lid off his treat jar from half a block away. My kids can smell fresh twenties in my wallet. I think some people are perhaps more tuned to be sensitive to this, so we need to look at that and some of the dynamics there, but perhaps we can also have a discussion about home design and noise suppression. We have noise-cancelling headphones such that even on an aircraft it's very quiet.
Perhaps there's more to this discussion and there are more options if we start to drill a bit deeper. I'll save those questions for the next panel.
Liberal
Gagan Sikand Liberal Mississauga—Streetsville, ON
My first question is for Mr. Novak.
Clearly, there is an effect on the quality of life due to the noise from airports. Can you describe to what degree?
Associate Professor, University of Windsor, As an Individual
As was suggested in the previous question that was posed, it varies from person to person. It also varies with lifestyle and expectations.
I think one of the potentials that can affect us more than anything else is deprivation of sleep at night from high-level incidences, although this does not reflect the overall time average. I've also heard concerns from people such as stay-at-home mothers who are playing with their children outside.
Liberal
Gagan Sikand Liberal Mississauga—Streetsville, ON
Let me jump in there as I have a limited amount of time.
Perhaps you could describe how this affects the cognitive development of children.
Associate Professor, University of Windsor, As an Individual
There have been studies done in Europe where they looked at the levels of noise exposure and the effect on children learning to read. It was found that every 10 decibel increase in the noise level they were exposed to slowed down the learning process by, I believe, six months. There definitely is evidence of impacts on children learning when they are exposed to high levels of noise.
Liberal
Gagan Sikand Liberal Mississauga—Streetsville, ON
Thank you.
David, welcome. You know better than I do that Mississauga's expansion was mainly a result of its appeal to big business. We are a product of that. It's good that we want to increase our business, and productivity is great, but a problem with that now is that there's a lot of noise. I have people calling in like Gale Santos, who's a frequent flyer and has been there forever and is now seeing the traffic increase.
How do we reconcile the need to grow productivity with the need to keep the quality of life we used to have?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Mississauga Board of Trade
I don't know if you knew this, Gagan, but I was a 20-year resident in Meadowvale, right where you serve as an MP. While some people may disagree, it hasn't affected my mental capacity.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Mississauga Board of Trade
Please, Madam Chair, I'd be afraid of the outcome.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Mississauga Board of Trade
That's absolutely right; we have encouraged companies to locate in the area. We have built a strong economy in that area based on an airport. The airport didn't just pop up over the last couple of years. The airport has been there for a long, long time. While I'm not suggesting we shouldn't be sensitive to this, it is a fact that if you are going to locate close to an airport, you're probably going to have to experience a little bit of noise.
I was on a flight path and I would sit in my backyard and I swear I could count the tire treads on some of the big jumbo jets flying overhead. Again, Madam Chair, in reference to my mental capacity, maybe I just got used to it.
I agree we have to be sensitive to it, but we also have to realize that we cannot stand in the way of progress. We cannot limit this economic hub that resides around the Mississauga international airport, as I like to refer to it.
Liberal
Gagan Sikand Liberal Mississauga—Streetsville, ON
I definitely know you're a sharp tool in the shed.
What lessons could we learn if we were to expand and have another airport in the GTA, maybe out towards Pickering? What lessons could be learned from our example to help mitigate the noise versus the expansion and need for productivity?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Mississauga Board of Trade
That's an excellent question.
I think we also have to couple that experience with what we experienced at Mirabel. When you build an airport so far away from another major international airport and try to separate passengers, it becomes problematic. Certainly, I concur with my fellow panellists that there needs to be an adequate amount of space around an airport. Where would you build another one? If it's Pickering, that's built out now as well, so you're going to have to go well north of Pickering in order to look at that solution. You also have to take into consideration the problems that happened at Mirabel, which is now virtually a white elephant airport sitting out in the middle of nowhere.