LILLEY: Mark Carney's Liberals back away from Billy Bishop Airport expansion, putting politics ahead of growth
· Toronto Sun
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Mark Carney’s Liberal government launched Operation Coward on Friday night, quietly undercutting the expansion of Toronto’s Billy Bishop Airport.
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A carefully timed leak to the Liberal-friendly Toronto Star , published around 8 p.m. Friday, featured comments from Minister Steve MacKinnon that stopped short of explicitly cancelling the project.
Still, MacKinnon’s statement and the reaction from Liberal MPs suggest the government is abandoning a project it privately supported.
“At this stage, I can confirm that our focus lies on the approved safety enhancements, which are currently taking place,” MacKinnon said .
The entire letter was meant to appease the people who have been campaigning against the airport’s expansion for decades, many of whom would like to see it closed.
So much for Carney’s call for Canadians to think big, act bigger and move at speeds not seen in generations. Like so many promised major projects, the reality under Carney is that we’re thinking small, acting smaller and moving at the pace of Ottawa bureaucrats and NIMBYs.
From big promises to small thinking
Ontario Premier Doug Ford announced the expansion with great fanfare in March, even including provincial funding in his budget.
“With an upgraded airport on the waterfront, Toronto and Ontario will be able to compete with world-class cities around the globe, supporting tourism and business travel across Ontario and creating thousands of new jobs for Ontario workers,” Ford said at the time .
The plan was to expand the runway to allow jets that are quieter and more fuel-efficient than turboprops to land at the airport. Ford’s announcement did not come out of nowhere. He had been speaking about the idea publicly for some time, and also had the backing of the Toronto Region Board of Trade, the Ontario Chamber of Commerce and several other business and municipal groups.
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Ford also believed he had Carney’s support after the prime minister privately encouraged the expansion. That support appears to have evaporated as Carney, and his 24 Liberal MPs in the Greater Toronto Area, became the target of a public relations campaign by airport opponents.
Ford’s team insists the airport expansion isn’t dead and they plan to keep moving ahead with their end of the project. There is enough wiggle room in MacKinnon’s statement that one could claim he hasn’t explicitly killed the project, but opponents of the airport are celebrating like they have won the war, not just a battle.
Carney folds under pressure
Despite the optimism of the Ford government, it would appear Carney’s Liberals are walking away. Instead of advancing an infrastructure project that would strengthen the economy, Carney has folded in the face of opposition.
The man is not as advertised.
This is not the first time the Liberals have squashed this project and hurt Canada economically.
Ottawa has made this mistake before
In November 2015, without conducting any study, the Justin Trudeau Liberals made cancelling the expansion of Billy Bishop Airport one of their first orders of business. That decision was a factor in Bombardier being forced to sell its C Series commercial jet program to Airbus.
Porter Airlines had committed to buying 12 C Series jets, with options for 18 more, contingent on the airport expansion. When Ottawa killed the project, the order disappeared, helping throw the entire C Series program into doubt.
The A220 may no longer be Canadian-owned, but it is still assembled in Montreal and could replace much of Porter and Air Canada’s aging Dash 8 fleets. The A220 is quieter overall than the Dash 8, alleviating concerns raised by activists, and it burns less fuel, making it a greener option.
The airport is already undergoing a federally mandated runway extension for safety reasons. Approving the expansion at the same time should have been a no-brainer — that is if the Carney Liberals actually believed what they sold to the Canadian public about “Building Canada Strong.”
Building Canada Strong apparently ends where NIMBY opposition begins.