Thank you, Madame Chair and committee members. I speak to you as a resident of Etobicoke Centre of 44 years, where planes fly over as low as 700 feet and their numbers increase yearly. I acknowledge the benefits of airports to our city and region, but there are negative impacts. The two need to be balanced. To achieve a balance, I urge you to consider three things: the health impacts of noise, the need for noise regulation and the need for a long-term plan.
Regarding health, there is now sufficient evidence linking environmental noise exposure to cardiovascular problems, mental health problems and cognitive learning difficulties in children. As parents and grandparents, we need to be concerned about these impacts on infants and adolescents, because they are vulnerable. Other countries, such as Australia, Germany and the U.K., have eliminated or curtailed night flights. I hope you will conclude that it's time for Canada to join them.
Regarding regulations, only three of the many civil aviation regulations pertain to noise. They are ineffective and insufficient to regulate the night sky. This deficiency has allowed Toronto Pearson to remove the old night curfew and reduce the restricted night period from eight hours to six hours. lt has also allowed it to double night flights in the past 20 years, and if nothing is done, they will double again in the next 20 years.
The night sky needs to be regulated. The old night curfew needs to be re-established so we can have uninterrupted sleep. It's a basic human right. We espouse human rights on the world stage but fail to look in our own backyard. Children are our most precious resource, but airports have ignored their right to sleep. Many airports have implemented night curfews and have continued to thrive. Contrary to industry predictions, the sky didn't fall. Airport night hours must be realigned to the body's need for eight hours of sleep, as we had prior to 1985. Six hours are inadequate, and the consequences are significant. Insufficient sleep costs Canadian businesses over $20 billion a year in lost productivity, and it costs society more than $30 billion in health costs.
The U.K. has regulated the night sky, and Heathrow is now a shining example. Although bigger than Pearson, it has an annual night flight limit of only 5,800, compared to Pearson's 19,000 and growing. The GTAA wants to make Pearson the biggest international airport on the continent, and to do that, it will keep increasing night flights. Airports such as Heathrow, Sydney, Zurich, Munich and Frankfurt are leaders in aviation noise management because of government regulation, not because it's in their corporate DNA. New regulations are a must.
Pearson communities are exposed to more than 460,000 flights per year, and this level of traffic generates many concerns. From January to July of this year, the GTAA received 81,000 noise complaints. The equivalent number for last year was 50,000, and it was 33,000 for 2016. How do they compare with other major Canadian airports? They are not even in the same ballpark.
Our growing concerns are not being addressed by the GTAA. Therefore, I urge you to recommend the creation of an independent watchdog. Countries that are concerned about community health impacts have an aviation noise ombudsman. Australia was one of the first, and the U.K. is the most recent. With your help, Canada can have one too.
Regarding the long term, we cannot rely on the aviation industry to find an equitable solution for the region. This is clearly a government responsibility. ln 1989, the government established an environmental assessment panel to address Pearson's expansion plans and the need for new airports to serve the long-term needs of the region.
When the panel recommended against Pearson's expansion, the government dissolved it and the long-term question was never addressed. Three decades later, our communities are paying the price for that decision. We now have an urgent need for a long-term solution.
I urge you to address the region's need for another airport and, in the interim, to recommend greater utilization and expansion of neighbouring ones.
In summary, Madam Chair, we need to address health impacts, because they are real and costly; regulate the night sky, because sleep is a basic human right; and study the long-term issue, because a solution is urgently needed.
Thank you for the opportunity to be here. I look forward to your questions.