I thank the committee for having me.
I'd like to tell you the story of our town. Since 1969, the year the then federal Liberal government decided to build an international airport in Mirabel, our town suffered many mishaps that have had direct and, at times, irreversible impacts on our citizens and on municipal development.
This airport, built at surprising speed—under five years—came at a cost of over $500 million. Mirabel was meant to become the main airport for international flights. In the medium term, there were even plans to expand it to meet future needs.
In order to build this 21.1-square-kilometre airport site, the government had to expropriate 97,000 acres of land. At the time, the city of Mirabel, especially the Sainte‑Scholastique sector, made their living from agriculture, and a great many of its residents practised subsistence farming. This is still the case today. The expropriations led to the loss of many farms and family homes, as well as job losses. Without any land to farm, it became difficult to plan for the economic development of the airport sector and neighbouring sectors, mainly because of the easement around the airport preventing any kind of development.
The last passenger flight out of Mirabel occurred in October 2004. From that moment forward, the airport would only handle commercial flights, cargo transport and activities related to aircraft manufacturing. Residential and commercial development is still quite limited in the area, since many parcels of land are still encumbered by the easement preventing construction, which has become outdated, and more importantly entirely irrelevant, since the land was never used as it was intended to be used. The assessors believe this easement to extend several kilometres beyond the runways.
For our municipality, this easement is impeding the development of several sectors, including Sainte‑Scholastique, which has roughly 1,600 residents, Sainte‑Monique, which has 400, and Saint‑Augustin, which has slightly over 14,400 residents.
Specifically, here are the direct impacts of this easement on our community: limited residential and commercial development in the sectors involved; devitalization due to a lack of infrastructure development; devaluation of those sectors in the municipality with the fastest-growing population; a lack of economic development and public services; the uprooting of residents and their families from an area where they've lived their entire lives.
Our wish is then to allow our people to get what they're entitled to, in other words access to proper infrastructure that meets the current needs of a society deserving of respect in the area in which it chose to live. For that to happen, we need your co-operation in order to lift the easement that will allow for the completion of a variety of projects that will benefit a generation that has suffered a great deal. I can think of the proposed seniors' residence in the Sainte‑Scholastique sector, which happens to be the subject of a petition signed by over 200 citizens of Mirabel. A day care centre could also be built in Sainte‑Monique.
In conclusion, we're happy to be able to speak to you about some of the projects we have and which will require your co-operation in lifting this easement around the airport preventing further development. The goal of all of these projects is to offer quality services to our citizens.
We remain at your disposal to answer any and all questions you may have that would allow us to move forward on this issue.