The Ford Government justified its legislation to expand Billy Bishop Airport (Bill 110) as “reducing pressure at Toronto Pearson International Airport.” I wonder if any of Ford’s minions were at the Empire Club earlier this week when Pearson CEO Deborah Flint gave a presentation entitled “Positioned to Grow — Toronto Pearson Enters a New Era.” If they were, they must be questioning their own plan to bring jets to Billy Bishop and increase its capacity to handle 10 million passengers, from less than 2 million currently.

Pearson’s Plan

Pearson currently handles 48 million passengers, and Pearson LIFT is a plan to increase its capacity to 65 million passengers by the early 2030’s. The first part of the plan involves increasing airside capacity by developing a high-tech airfield and is now underway. The second phase involves revitalization of terminals 1 and 3. The third phase is the expansion of terminal capacity for another 15 million passengers. Realizing this plan will expand Pearson’s workforce from 52,000 to 66,000.

In addition, Ms. Flint said that Pearson’s ultimate capacity is likely 100 million passengers, and that end-state is being kept in mind as the current plan is being implemented. When the federal government proposed to build a second Toronto International Airport at Pickering in the early Seventies, it estimated that Pearson’s ultimate capacity was 20 million passengers. Technology has evolved to allow much more efficient utilization of airport space than was the case 50 years ago. (Personal disclosure: I remember this because I wrote my 1976 doctoral dissertation on airport planning for the GTA.)

Ms. Flint also reported that her staff has been working on LIFT for three years, with modules dealing with passenger growth, environmental impact, technology, and cost. In contrast, the province has revealed no growth plans for Billy Bishop Airport to support their legislation. How long have they been working on their plans. Three months, perhaps?

The three months figure may well be accurate. The federal government recently announced plans for Alto, high-speed rail service in the Quebec-Windsor corridor, which would sharply reduce passenger traffic at Billy Bishop Airport. Nieuport Aviation, owners of the Billy Bishop terminal, have been intensively lobbying the provincial government for a commitment to bring more traffic to their airport, in an obvious bid to safeguard their investment.

Airport Planning or Airport Politics?

The capacity of the two airports serving Toronto is now 50 million passengers and their expansion plans would increase capacity to 75 million passengers (65 million at Pearson, 10 million at Bishop) early in the 2030s. This 50 percent increase might represent too much capacity.

Airports are a federal responsibility, and normally the federal government would decide where and when to add capacity. By pushing the City of Toronto out of the tripartite agreement regarding Billy Bishop, the Ford Government is butting into airport planning. And it appears to be doing it in response to lobbying by Nieuport Aviation. There are two sides to lobbying: what the government can do for the organization lobbying it, and what the lobbyists’ client or preferred policy will do for the government. We don’t know what Nieuport may have offered to do for the Ford Government, and we can be sure the Ford Government will strive mightily to keep us from knowing.

The Ford Government’s other justification for wanting to expand Billy Bishop is that its internal opinion polling shows this proposal has public support. The classic way to bias a public opinion poll of this kind is to ask, “would you like X?” rather than to ask, “would you like X if this is what it will cost and these are its secondary effects?” or “would you prefer X or Y?” It does not appear that their polling questions incorporated trade-offs or alternatives.

Airport planning is a standard application of cost-benefit analysis that has been in use since the Sixties. I know this because I encountered it while working on my dissertation in the early Seventies. A cost-benefit analysis of expanding the Toronto airport system would involve analysis of capital and operating costs at Pearson and Bishop, analysis of passenger access costs to Pearson and Bishop, and analysis of environmental costs (air and noise pollution) of increasing flights at Pearson and Bishop. Pearson is surrounded primarily by an industrial area, while Bishop is surrounded by a residential and recreational area. Environmental costs – the value of disruption of human activities – are likely to be higher around Bishop than around Pearson. Finally, the analysis should include the alternative of closing Bishop Airport and converting it to recreational use, like the Toronto Island park and harbour that surround it.

The cost-benefit analysis that I have sketched out in the previous paragraph is complex, because there are lots of moving parts, but straight-forward, because the methodology is well-known. Decisions about the Toronto airport system are ultimately political, because they will be made by the Carney Government. But a cost-benefit analysis would allow politicians and citizens to better understand the alternatives and trade-offs. The Carney Government must reject the Ford Government’s haste, superficiality, and lack of transparency and take the time to provide the analysis this significant infrastructure decision demands.