Potential mayoral candidate Olivia Chow opposes jets landing at Toronto island airport
Olivia Chow, the NDP MP and potential Toronto mayoral candidate, opposes jets landing at an expanded island airport — setting up a potential 2014 campaign fight with Mayor Rob Ford.
“I don’t support the proposed expansion of the island airport,” Chow told the Star in an email Thursday, one day after Porter Airlines announced controversial plans to start flying jets out of Billy Bishop Airport.
Robert Deluce, chief executive of popular Porter, which flies turboprop planes as far as South Carolina, has made big waves with a conditional order for jets while he lobbies the city, Ottawa and the Toronto Port Authority to extend the airport runway by 168 metres at each end.
“I don’t have a problem with it,” Ford told reporters Thursday when asked about amending the 1983 tripartite agreement to extend the runway and allow jets to land downtown.
Chow, however, noted that a speedy taxpayer-funded transit link between Pearson International Airport and Union Station is in the works and Pearson airport has lots of capacity.
“The effort of all three levels of government to revitalize Toronto’s waterfront is starting to pay huge dividends,” she wrote. “More people and businesses are moving into the area.
“The new parks and other public amenities are cherished, and the Toronto Islands continue to be one of the city’s most popular destinations. And opening up the airport to jets will have wide-ranging negative effects on residents along the waterfront from Scarborough to Etobicoke.”
For a city to succeed, neighbourhoods need to succeed so “Porter should respect the terms of its existing agreement,” Chow concluded.
She stood beside David Miller in 2003 when he rode opposition to an island airport bridge to the mayor’s chair. Chow married on the Toronto islands, and the city renamed the ferry terminal to honour her late husband, Jack Layton.
It is difficult to say whom the issue would benefit if it has a second life as a wedge in next year’s mayoral election.
Since 2003, Porter and flying from downtown have become very popular with many Torontonians. The idea of taking a streetcar to a Florida flight would appeal to many. However, concerns over development of Toronto’s much-abused waterfront linger.
TTC chair Karen Stintz, who is also considering a run against Ford, on Wednesday quickly went on record saying Porter is a great airline but it should respect the tripartite agreement and abandon expansion plans.
Stintz noted that changing the agreement — which requires agreements of all three parties — would open the airport to jets from Air Canada and other tenants, not just the new 107-seat Bombardier CS100s that Porter promises will be quiet.
Councillor Adam Vaughan, yet another potential mayoral challenger and the airport’s ward councillor, is furious at Porter for the hard-sell bid. He raised the spectre of corporate jets now landing at Pearson flocking to the downtown airport instead.
