by Glen Howard

Created on: January 26, 2009

Many Canadians living in Toronto were excitedly anticipating the "green" rejuvenation of their waterfront area. Consequently, areas such as Harbourfront, Harbor Castle Hotel, and the Bathurst Quay neighborhood were established in the 1970's.

In the early 1980s there was considerable opposition to commercial flights out of the Toronto City Centre Airport (located on an island in the waterfront area), because of concerns about air, noise, and water

pollution. Consequently, the Tripartite Agreement was signed in 1983 between the city, the Toronto Harbor Commission and the federal government, setting rules for commercial operations at the airport. The agreement primarily disallowed the use of jets which were considered to be highly pollutive. Commercial traffic continued its prior decline thereafter.

Airport Expansion

In the late 1990s the federal government decided to revise the way it managed ports in Canada and proposed a new Canada Marine Act. In June 8, 1999 the Toronto Port Authority (TPA) administered by a majority of federal appointees, appeared on the scene and the Toronto Harbor Commission, controlled by city appointees, disappeared from the scene.

Firstly, TPA commissioned a report on the island airport by Sypher Mueller, a consulting firm that worked for the airline industry. The report published in 2002 concluded that the airport could not continue at its present level of operations because it was losing substantial amounts of money. They recommended that the airport should expand and additionally add a fixed link (bridge) to the airport across the Western Gap (harbor). The TPA accepted.

Robert Deluce, another important player whose family had long involvement in the airline industry, joined forces with the TPA. Deluce envisioned starting an airline operating out of the island airport using Bombardier Q400 aircraft. He agreed that a bridge was essential if his airline was to be a success. The TPA agreed to build it.

Airport Expansion Concerns

Simultaneously, CommunityAIR, (CAIR) was being formed. CAIR, a volunteer group of citizens opposed to airport expansion, began to research the impact of an expanded airport on the surrounding community. The group soon became one of the largest and most successful community groups in the city of Toronto, http://www.communityair.org. CAIR argued that the airport should close and reasonably showed that an expanded airport would lead to increases in air, noise and water pollution.

At the 2003 Toronto municipal election the

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