Mr. Speaker, we did not receive an application for a $1.2 billion expansion because the plan is to fund the expansion through the airport improvement fund, which is paid for by passengers. We in this country have commercialized our airports, something that happened about 25 years ago under a previous Liberal government, and it was a wise decision, because it put the costs of airport improvements onto the users who benefit from those improvements.
The improvement of the Billy Bishop airport would be funded in a similar manner. No one is applying for a federal grant to build an expanded airport. In fact, the reality is that, if the member really believed that the airport could not build it without a grant, then he would not have had to send his minister out to block the project in the first place. They could have just rejected the application when it arrived. Why would they not have waited for such an application to arrive on the desk? The truth is that there was no need for such an application.
The $1.2 billion cost that the member is using is a number he is inventing, because he is speaking for a very tiny minority of very well connected and very wealthy people who do not want to see this expansion go ahead. It is unfortunate, but they are doing it at the expense of middle-class taxpayers, middle-class workers, and middle-class Torontonians who will lose out as a result of the government blocking this opportunity.