Fair Sharing and Facts

This page presents a number of brief facts about Toronto City Centre Airport, and the issue of fairly sharing environmental burdens.

Comparing the Airports: Pearson and Toronto City Centre

1. Toronto City Centre Airport does not represent a pollution problem. The American Environmental Protection Agency commissioned a study of Midway Airport, the major in-town airport in the South end of Chicago. This study gives us some indication of the kind of pollution we might expect from a revitalised Toronto City Centre Airport. The EPA studied the toxic pollution which rightly gives rise to the greatest local concerns. Based on what they found, we can expect that if Toronto City Centre ends up carrying the maximum number of passengers Robert Deluce’s proposal calls for, it will produce 5% (a twentieth) as much pollution as the Gardiner Expressway and other local road traffic.
2. The airport does not represent a public safety threat. Aircraft, and particularly aircraft in scheduled passenger service, arrive and depart over the lake. When aircraft approaching Toronto City Centre Airport have mishaps, they come down in Lake Ontario; when aircraft on flights into and out of Buttonville have problems, they come down near homes and workplaces.
3. Dispatching a passenger from Toronto City Centre by turboprop causes less local pollution than dispatching the same passenger from Pearson. The EPA Midway Study (see above) identified ground activities as causing at least half of the local pollution generated by airport operations, and at Toronto City Centre Airport, the short taxiways and efficient placement of the terminal could reduce ground operations by as much as 50%.
4. Aviation is not a significant polluter. Domestic aviation in Canada accounts for less than 2% of Canada's greenhouse gas emissions; worldwide, the number comes to 4%. A Dash-8 Q400 produces less pollution than the passengers would generate by driving their own cars, even if they each drove a Toyota Prius (the most fuel-efficient standard car now on the road).
5. Pearson has a far greater effect on its surroundings, and on the people who live near it, than Toronto City Centre Airport could possibly have. As a study of the effect of airport operations done by city staff for the Waterfront Reference Group made clear, 150,000 people live in the area of moderate noise impact, the NEF-25 contour around Pearson International Airport. In contrast, a maximum of about 200 people live inside the NEF-24 contour for Toronto City Centre Airport. In addition, about 10,000 people live in the area of high noise impact, or NEF-30 contour around Pearson; nobody lives inside the NEF-30 contour of City Centre. Revitalising Toronto City Centre Airport could divert up to 10% of the flights from Pearson International Airport, reducing the noise and emissions burden carried by the 150,000 people who live closest to Pearson.
6. Permitting the revitalisation of Toronto City Centre Airport will have another positive effect on the environment: it will provide the best possible conditions for the success of cleaner aviation technologies, such as the Dash-8 turboprop. The Dash-8 burns less fuel, makes less noise, and generally moves people with less environmental effects than its competitors.
7. Many of the claims made about Toronto City Centre Airport are simply false. The airport does not and will not release fuel or deicing fluid into Lake Ontario; it has a sophisticated surface water management system. Commercial flights do not use the Don Valley as a flyway to Northern destinations, nor will they fly over the city; all the commercial flights depart south over the lake.

Malton and the Waterfront: Comparing the communities

The neighbourhood closest to Toronto City Centre Airport is the waterfront, which starts to the west of the Exhibition and continues along to the portlands near the mouth of the Don River. The neighbourhood closest to Pearson is Malton, which begins at the north-west corner of Pearson International Airport, right across from the airport fence, and extends north and east to highway 427.

Given the difference is the size of the airports, the impact of Toronto City Centre Airport on the waterfront cannot compare to the impact operations at Pearson have on Malton and Rexdale. However, comparing the two communities does illustrate the importance of taking equity and fairness into account when making environmental decisions.

The census profiles for the area provided by Statistics Canada from the 2001 Census give a good picture of the communities near Pearson and on the waterfront. As of the 2001 census, 53000 people made their homes in Malton, while just over 38,000 people lived in the census tracts immediately along the Toronto waterfront. A large number of young families call Malton home, with nearly a quarter of the population under fifteen years of age, and about half under thirty (see the section on noise effects).

The waterfront community enjoys household incomes almost double those of Malton: over $100,000 per household for the waterfront, against a little over $60,000 for Malton.

A Toxic Indifference

To live in cities, to enjoy their diversity, cultural richness, and economic opportunities, we have to provide ourselves with various services. Most of those services cause some form of pollution. Aviation, hardly a significant polluter, attracts attention and concern far out of proportion with whatever harm it actually does. Amid all of the concerns expressed about pollution, we sometimes forget the most toxic substances of all: indifference and injustice. The recent election for Toronto's mayor and council has been called a watershed election. and it will be followed by a very important council session, which will address this question: are we prepared to congratulate ourselves on achieving environmental "excellence" for some, while ignoring the many people who will pay for that "excellence"?

Unfortunately, too many people, most shockingly on the Toronto "Left", seem prepared to answer "yes" to that question. Few if any of the proposals to restrict Toronto City Centre Airport contain anything for the families of Malton and Rexdale. Some of the most strident lobby groups demanding the closure of Toronto City Centre Airport deny these people even exist. But nothing, not pollution, not hard times, not even war or pestilence endangers a city half as much as the denial of its children. A city divided is a city devastated. The efforts we put into recovering from a decade of neglect by a reactionary Provincial government; or from the year of SARS, West Nile, and power failure; all these efforts will be wasted if we ignore the demands of plain justice.

Justice, of course, does not demand that we choose to revitalise Toronto City Centre Airport. But it does demand that we face the truth about where pollution we produce when we travel goes. At this point, we ought to recognise that the only one proposal on the table right now comes close to fairly sharing (and reducing) the environmental burden of our travel needs. That is the proposal to revitalise Toronto City Centre Airport with limited turboprop flights.

We've had an Election in Toronto. Now What?

Toronto voters have now elected David Miller mayor of Toronto. Mr. Miller now plans to bring the issue to Toronto City Council to ask them to reverse the previous council's decision to permit the construction of a bridge to Toronto City Centre Airport. He has not yet promised to bring any concerns about the people of Rexdale and Malton to City Council. His campaign has ignored the effect of air travel on other parts of the city and the region; he speaks of "working to consolidate air travel at Pearson Airport" without ever mentioning the communities right next to the Pearson flight paths.

Some of Mr. Miller's supporters have argued that "the people of Toronto have spoken" in electing Mr. Miller. Leaving aside the fact that a majority of Toronto voters cast ballots for candidates who favoured keeping the bridge to the airport, many of the people the air traffic at Pearson affects live in Mississauga and cannot vote in Toronto. Even if the people of Toronto indeed "spoke" when they elected Mr. Miller, a vote does not give anyone the right to ship pollution out to other areas of the region. Voting for injustice does not dignify inequity: it degrades democracy.

However you interpret the words of the voters, they (or some of them) have indeed spoken. The new city council now has a chance to speak; but first, they ought to listen, at least enough to know the children of Rexdale and Malton exist. And when they make their decision, let it contain something for those children. If they really consider an "excellent" waterfront important enough to cancel a proposal that could reduce the jet flights over these children by up to 10%, they when they speak, let us hear what they would do instead.

See some frequently asked questions about this issue.

Read about the principles of environmental equity.

Return to the main page.