How many waterfront parks does Premier Doug Ford get to raze?
- The Toronto Port Authority is driving a dubious expansion plan without a business plan
- Toronto Island is a natural public refuge and home to Canada’s oldest Pride Space
- PM Mark Carney must halt airport expansion plans
“Doug already flattened an amazing park at Ontario Place for a Romanian knockoff luxury spa, now he expects us to trust him with bulldozers on the island?”
Lucy S.
“The cheese slipped off the cracker.”
Doug F.
Wait, who owns the airport terminal?
Uh-oh
How does handing Toronto public parkland over to US billionaire CEO Jamie Dimon serve Canadians?
Nearly 2M people visit Toronto Island every year – the Island is a vital summer respite for all of us
Why is Island airport expansion such a bad idea?
Well, it would:
- Cost $5 billion and take 30 years
- Raze large sections of Toronto Island Park, including Hanlan’s Point Beach
- Infill a two kilometre-long runway into Toronto’s Harbourfront (roughly the distance from Yonge to Bathurst St.)
- Choke off lake circulation, resulting in pervasive stench and water pollution downtown
- Fill the Harbourfront air with jet exhaust and airborne carcinogens
- Gridlock Toronto’s lakeshore with crippling traffic congestion
Suffocating pollution aside, the business plan for this expansion is worrisome: currently Pearson Airport is spending $3 billion to add 23 million passengers; Premier Doug Ford’s Billy Bishop plan would cost $5 billion to add just 8 million passengers to a competitor commuter airport on the decline. The federal government knows this expansion plan stinks but are silently holding their noses while this gravy plane crawls down the tarmac. Prime Minister Mark Carney and Transport Minister Steven MacKinnon need to stop indulging Doug Ford and do the obvious and decent thing: stop the Island airport expansion immediately.
This push is coming from Americans: as soon as the federal government prioritized high-speed rail from Toronto to Montreal, JP Morgan started twisting Doug Ford’s arm. As a commuter airport, Billy Bishop is directly threatened by high-speed rail and the United States is trying to knock Canada’s high-speed train off the track. We firmly support high-speed rail. Let’s nation-build the right way.
Toronto supported the federal Liberals in droves; the Liberals should reciprocate that support.
This is what they’re taking from us
Let’s take back our Island
What if…
We roll Toronto Island into Rouge National Urban Park?
We will pressure all Ontario MPs, especially:
- Mark Carney Prime Minister
- Steven MacKinnon Transport Minister
- Julie Dabrusin Environment Minister
- Julie Dzerowicz Toronto Liberal Chair
Rouge was formed by expropriating airport land
There’s legal precedent for this exact scenario in the GTA – because Ottawa’s done this before, they can do it again
In 1975, Ontario backed out of a Greater Toronto Area airport project;
in 2015, Ottawa converted that land into Rouge National Urban Park
Toronto Island is for everyone
Friends hanging at Hanlan’s point in the 1950’s (Courtesy of Ed Jackson, from Philip McLeod’s collection)
STICC members are regular people like you
Doug Ford needs to cool his jets
Join our movement to stop him
Save Toronto Island Coordinating Committee is a nonpartisan community group