Good morning.
I want to start by congratulating the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities for addressing this problem, which affects hundreds of thousands of people. Kudos to you.
I also want to thank my MP, Angelo Iacono, for inviting me to this meeting.
My testimony is quite specific and personal, like Mr. Laquerre's. We've gone through a similar experience.
I lived in Ahuntsic until last year. Until 2012, I never had any problems with aircraft noise overhead. But in 2012, NAV CANADA suddenly changed its air corridors over Montreal. For me, it was hell. All of a sudden, I was seeing and hearing an unending stream of planes passing overhead, day and night, first at 3,500 feet or 3,000 feet, and later at 2,500 feet. In my yard, I had to shout at my wife to make myself heard, even if she was just three or four feet away.
I installed a noise measurement station, which calculated that in July 2015 alone, there were 3,700 aircraft overflights above my residence, generating noise in excess of 55 decibels, including 650 flights in the middle of the night. Yet my property was 10 kilometres from the airport as the crow flies. After five years of that hell, though I am a city-dweller and I love Montreal, I did what I never thought I would: I moved to the suburbs, to Laval, to regain peace and quiet.
Before buying a house in Auteuil, I spent a whole summer carefully studying the district, and it was perfect. When there were visible overflights, they were at an altitude of 5,000 or 6,000 feet. They made only a bit of noise, like the buzzing of a mosquito. I bought the property in the fall of 2016 and moved there in May 2017. When I arrived, I noticed that the planes were now passing over my new house at 3,000 to 4,000 feet, and there was a pretty steady flow. You can imagine my dismay. The kicker is that when those aircraft fly over my house, they are in the landing process, and they have at least 27 kilometres to go, as the crow flies, before they touch down on the runway. Mr. Laquerre mentioned a distance of 32 kilometres, so let's say it's about 30 kilometres. How can planes be making so much noise over my home when they are 30 kilometres away from landing on the runway?
I'm certain the Government of Canada had good intentions when it supported the advent of Aéroports de Montréal, or ADM, and NAV CANADA. I remember statements indicating that Canada was the first country to privatize its skies, in 1996. It was a bold move, but with the blunders we have seen, we now know it was an unfortunate decision.
I spent huge amounts of time between 2012 and 2017 trying to get ADM and NAV CANADA to restore quality of life to thousands of Montreal residents, without success. I worked with the group Les Pollués de Montréal-Trudeau. I have come to the realization that those organizations are now being driven by the lure of money, to the detriment of our environment.
It's not the increase in air traffic that is causing problems, it's the fact that aircraft are flying lower than before. That enables the air carriers to save on fuel, a fact confirmed by Minister Garneau's office. Their excuse for making our lives hell is that they are generating less greenhouse gas. What a crazy pretext.
They also confirmed that lining up planes to land one after another or to follow the same flight path means fewer employees are needed in the control tower, saving NAV CANADA money. The carriers behind NAV CANADA have become so powerful that they dictate the rules. Both ADM and NAV CANADA say nothing has changed in a century. How can I, as an ordinary citizen, prove the contrary?
For example, NAV CANADA violated its June 2015 communications and consultation protocol when the altitude of flights over Laval was subsequently lowered to less than 4,000 feet. There should have been public consultations when this was done, but there were none. Who can confirm this state of affairs for me if NAV CANADA doesn't? And what should the penalty be for NAV CANADA? The protocol doesn't even specify any penalties.
ADM refuses to provide us with any statistics on the percentage of flights from the west or south that pass over Laval. Why do they fly over us and not over the south shore once in a while? Why don't they land from the west? ADM continually cites wind direction as the reason, but we can see that's not always true.