Ontario passed a law allowing the province to take over land on the Toronto Islands where Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport is located. The province said it will not take over the entire islands and will work with the city to use only the land needed for airport expansion. Transportation Minister Prabmeet Sarkaria said the province will designate the area as a special economic zone to fast-track the project. The expansion is intended to allow jets to take off and land, since current runways are too short. The law also enables the province to replace Toronto in a tripartite agreement governing the land, currently involving the city, the federal government, and the Toronto Port Authority. Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow criticized the move as a land grab without consultation.
"Ontario will soon designate Toronto's island airport a so-called special economic zone in an effort to fast-track its expansion now that the province has taken over the land, Transportation Minister Prabmeet Sarkaria said Thursday. The province passed into law Thursday a bill that allows it to take over all the land on the Toronto Islands where Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport is located. The province has said it will not take over the entirety of the Toronto Islands despite the language in the legislation, and will work with the city to only use the land needed to make the airport bigger."
"Premier Doug Ford wants to expand the airport, which he calls a "crown jewel," to allow jets to take off and land there. The runways are currently too short for jets. The new law also allows the province to take Toronto's spot in a tripartite agreement that governs the land, an accord that is currently between the city, the federal government and the Toronto Port Authority, which is a federal agency."
""We're going to work with the Toronto Port Authority to ensure that we move forward with that and deploy the special economic zones and other tools that are needed to ensure that this project is moved forward," Sarkaria said. "It's too important for Ontario, for Canada, not to get this project moving forward," he said. "We're talking about nation-building projects across this country, this is going to be one of them.""
"Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow has called the project a land grab without consultation. "Once again, Torontonians are the victims of provincial overreach, robbed of their say over the future of their own waterfront," Chow said in a statement on Thursday. "We have not seen a formal proposal for airport expansion. The province and the Toronto"
#airport-expansion #special-economic-zones #toronto-islands #provincial-land-takeover #transportation-policy
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