Thank you, but I'm trying to stay within my five-minute time limit. I should also remind you that I sent in my speech ahead of time.
I am tabling here as exhibit 1 the maps provided by ADM indicating the position of our residence and the flight path in question. Since southwest winds prevail in the metropolitan area about 70% of the time, we actually find ourselves with the same aircraft flying over our heads as in Montreal, at only a slightly higher altitude.
We initially estimated at 30 to 40 the number of planes flying over our home every day. However, an exact count conducted over the holidays in early August revealed that it is closer to 70 to 80 aircraft per day, with a frequency of one per minute at certain peak times. Needless to say, it is almost impossible to spend a summer day in the backyard without hearing the constant drone of aircraft, with the only lull occurring between 1:00 and 5:30 in the morning. The noise is audible inside the house, even with the windows shut. We get woken up at 5:30 a.m. on a fairly regular basis, as we were two days ago.
Faced with the apathy and indifference of ADM and NAV CANADA, we decided to contact the Minister of Transport to have him deal with these two bodies. I would like to table a copy of our letter to him as exhibit 2. In that letter, we pointed out that the number of flights has doubled since the 1960s and is expected to continue increasing at a rate of 2.5% per year beyond 2040. We also proposed that the minister ask NAV CANADA to move the air corridors such that aircraft would fly over highways and uninhabited areas, which are just a few hundred metres south or east of the current corridors.
We additionally mentioned the fact that pilots can currently descend by levels to 3,000 feet, 27 nautical miles from the runway threshold, at a very noisy engine speed equivalent to 85% of maximum speed. The alternative would be to adopt the continuous descent approach method by flying at 9,000 feet at 42 nautical miles and beginning their final descent about 30 miles from the airport, almost gliding the final distance, at a minimal engine speed, significantly reducing noise emission. CDA-type procedures are already in place in Los Angeles, Atlanta, Paris and London.
However, in his October 2 response, which I would like to table as exhibit 3, Minister Garneau denied any responsibility pursuant to the 1992 delegation of authority agreement between Transport Canada and ADM, as well as the Civil Air Navigation Services Commercialization Act. Yet, above and beyond the legal relationship under which ADM is still accountable to the Minister of Transport, the minister himself, as an elected official and member of the government, has a moral responsibility to represent Canadians who are struggling with noise problems that could affect their well-being. Indeed, members of the government establish the rules of law that govern us, and the decision to entrust the management of air corridors to NAV CANADA ultimately rests with the government and the Minister of Transport.
It is just not right that in a situation involving public nuisance, citizens have to deal with a private profit-driven company such as ADM, which denies the existence of a noise problem—as evidenced by the quote from its VP of public affairs, Christiane Beaulieu, that appeared in a 2012 article in the Journal de Montréal, which I am tabling as exhibit 4—and which itself delegates its responsibility to a third party such as NAV CANADA, whose last concern is the well-being of citizens, despite its commitments in the 2015 Airspace Change Communications and Consultation Protocol. There is no justification for the fact that the only recourse available to citizens is to take legal action, as the group Les Pollués de Montréal-Trudeau recently did.
The decision by previous governments to abdicate part of the responsibility for aeronautical noise pollution to local authorities was a good-faith error. This experience has nevertheless been harmful to Canadians. Given this failure, the government must review the National Airports Policy and require ADM and NAV CANADA to take into account the evolution in metropolitan land use in order to change the practices perpetuated over the past 40 years with total disregard for urbanization.
Thank you for your attention.