Transport committee  It's very difficult. Airlines have alliance partners. They use flights domestically that will fly out internationally. Split operations are not very efficient or useful.

Transport committee  They no longer have the ability to understand how airports operate. Years ago, there was this flow of people from regions to airports to headquarters, and Transport Canada was knowledgeable. That knowledge is gone now. There is no airports branch. I don't think they really have

Transport committee  I somewhat disagree with that. The market is Toronto. The market is Pearson. That's where they want to be. I don't agree that Pearson is attracting them as much as that they want to be here. WestJet was in Hamilton, and they wanted to grow their business; you grow it where the pe

Transport committee  I think that those non-noise-certified aircraft are few and far between. Many airports now are banning stage 2 aircraft—well, they are banning stage 3 aircraft, while the GTAA and Transport Canada are very proud that they no longer let stage 2 in there.

Transport committee  The GTAA just plays in the sandbox that's provided by Transport Canada. I think they're doing what anyone would do: they will operate within the limits that are set for them. If limits are to be placed, I think they have to come from Transport Canada, both on the airport side and

Transport committee  If you cut the number of flights in half, you reduce the amount of noise, so yes, it would reduce it, but you have to keep in mind that in order to meet their goal of 90 million passengers, they're going to have to bring in larger planes, and larger planes make more noise. Even i

Transport committee  It's been going on for a long time. It was triggered last year when they were doing construction on the two east-west runways and they had to use the north-south runway more, which is not one of their preferred runways. That added to it.

Transport committee  I don't think it's the case for arrivals, because they come in at a fixed slope. For departures, it's very dependent on the winds and the weather. If there are strong winds, they climb faster.

Transport committee  The work I did was to prepare a document called the Pickering draft plan, which outlined what the project would be. I summarized the number of technical studies and made it into a readable public document. I also prepared a draft document of the project description, which was th

Transport committee  The first one was never finalized and released. The second one used to be on Transport Canada's website. I personally do not have a copy of it, but I know you could get one from Transport Canada.

Transport committee  On Tuesday, Mr. Novak commented and said, “Look, it's sleep deprivation.” He emphasized that this was a key cause of annoyance.

Transport committee  I'm not in favour of it. Assigning the airports to the airport authorities has distanced the people from the decision-making authority. Assigning it to the private sector would make it even worse, because then you have legal documents that you're dealing with. I'm quite sure that

Transport committee  Many of the newer homes around the airport already have a noise warning on their titles, particularly the ones to the west. There are sections of Mississauga that were taken to the OMB, and the GTA lost and houses were built. Going forward, it's developed. Some tinkering can be

Transport committee  I would like to comment on that. I believe you used the word “facade”, and I don't think that is inappropriate. These committees are not committees that will take action, and there are no concrete results. By way of example, the GTAA has just come out with its noise management

Transport committee  That situation was similar to one that was faced at Pearson in the nineties, and they constructed a new runway. Knowing the new runway would impact people who had not previously been affected by noise, they put restrictions on it. Essentially they said it could only be used when