Mr. Speaker, putting aside the fact that the conditions for an environmental assessment, to start, were never met, and putting aside that the City of Toronto protested strenuously at the beginning of the environmental assessment and that the terms of reference were never completed and never consulted on, the issue that the member opposite raised was the need to respect municipal planning.
My question is about the federal planning around this issue. When a report was tabled on November 2013 at the City of Toronto, it showed that the land-side cost to configure the airport, to even begin to think about expanding it at its current configuration, would cost close to $600 million. The proponent of this project, the airline, not the port authority and not the City of Toronto, said that the city could use the money from the new building Canada fund, $600 million from the federal government, to pay for all the changes that were required on the city's property.
The federal government at the time was given the choice. It could fund the port authority and the airline's request, but it chose a different course. It actually funded transit in Scarborough with that money instead of acquiescing to Mr. Deluce's request. In light of the fact that the previous federal government did not support this project when given the opportunity, does the member think that the current opposition should support its previous position on the file?