I'd support that banmaybe there will be a federal ban on Walmart's within 100 km of civilization that bought his silence.
I'd support that banmaybe there will be a federal ban on Walmart's within 100 km of civilization that bought his silence.
So.... the feds did the right thing, in order to appease Mr. Vaughan? Excellent. What other right things can they do to appease others? This 'Doing the Right Thing' might become... a thing.
I'd support that ban
Is this Monte the same MPP calling for a moratorium of wind turbines because of "health effects"?
http://montemcnaughtonmpp.ca/2012/0...-mp-shipley-call-for-wind-turbine-moratorium/
Har har har. Perhaps he would be sold if it's called "Whisperbine" instead.
Best and most consistently high winds in Ontario are about 1km (or further) off-shore. Lake Huron and Ontario should be peppered with them, and coincidentally almost nobody lives on the lake.
I'd support that ban
Looks like the runway extension is dead, or at least 'dead until next Conservative majority'. I'll not be surprised if PortsToronto gets packed with Liberal supporters (as was the last go-round with Conservative supporters) and the whole complexion of the conversation around the harbour changes. I blue-skyed WT taking over planning and operations in the harbour... maybe not so fanciful now.
I'd support that ban
But then people complain about off-shore windmills destroying their view, as if they own it.
To be fair, the sight of dozens of windmills just off shore is as equally offensive as jets.
I would be in favor of a handful of them, but unfortunately that's sort of pointless in terms of actual capacity.
While I won't jinx it by dancing on its grave, the expansion for jets at Billy Bishop may be permanently dead. The Liberals hit the ground running and still have 4 years of a majority government to make sure it doesn't get revived. One thing that's being talked about is to designate the islands and portions of the waterfront federally protected bird sanctuaries. While that could in theory be reversed by a majority Conservative government, removing federal environmental protections is usually a hot potato that no government wants to burn political capital on. Wynne could help with this by putting in place provincial environmental protections at the new Ontario Place park.
Another permanent block on expanding the airport would come in the way of height along the flight paths of types of planes that would need a longer approach (i.e. jets). Building anything taller than 20 stories in certain parts of the Portlands would permanently kill the possibility of jets landing on the island. If it becomes clear to City Council that the jet situation is dead, they could zone the Portlands for high density. Nothing that tall will get built within this term of government but zoning could be defined, making it harder to reverse given that that would involve forgoing significant development potential and property tax value.
There's also the suggestion of stacking Ports Toronto with Liberals and/or changing the nature of the federal body to answer to Waterfront Toronto or abolishing it entirely and handing management of the harbour to WT.
Finally, there's the issue that Billy Bishop has been operating under old regulations, so technically it's not safe to land/take off from that runway according to the new federal standards. The Liberal government could decide to shut the whole thing down by mandating that it follow the new rules and at the same time making it impossible to build a runway extension.
This could be over, once and for all.
Finally, there's the issue that Billy Bishop has been operating under old regulations, so technically it's not safe to land/take off from that runway according to the new federal standards. The Liberal government could decide to shut the whole thing down by mandating that it follow the new rules and at the same time making it impossible to build a runway extension.
This could be over, once and for all.
I'd be happy to see all of the above. It would be a cunning way to not only stop the expansion, but could also be used to slowly, almost imperceptibly, strangle and eventually kill the airport itself. It would be a good strategy doing it that way. Death by a thousand cuts.
Except the final one is not gradual and as a taxpayer I would be very (very) worried about the very likely legal costs defending, and the liability from ultimately losing a hundreds of millions multi complainant law suit.
If I understand what MetroMan is suggesting is that
If that is the plan, the citizens of Canada (represented by their government) better bring a very large chequebook to the shutting down party.
- we licensed an airline to operate at an airport that was out of date regulation wise but we, in some way, grandfathered that operation from those regulations
- we sat back as that airline invested money in planes and staff and operations to operate at that airport as their base of operations
- we sat back as they invested in infrastructure like terminals, ferries, tunnels etc.
- sat back and (likely) authorized the investment of other private investors to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars in purhcasing (subject to the land lease) the new terminal
- then we will insist that the airport is out of date with regulations
- then we will refuse them the ability to correct that situation (which we authorized) by bringing the airport up to regulation
- we will shut down the airport rendering all of that investment worthless?
That would be unfortunate. Toronto would benefit from having the airport expanded to increase flights and choice, rather than this NIMBY attitude of some!There's an intermediate step. Porter moves out of the island to Pearson or shuts down.