Missing Permits Delay Airport Bridge - Toronto

November 13, 2003

Missing Permits Delay Airport Bridge
Toronto Star, Canada

The Toronto Port Authority is missing at least three city approvals, and
two federal ones, to build a controversial bridge to the Island airport,
says Mayor-elect David Miller.

Miller, who was elected on this issue, plans to make sure that before any
of those documents are signed and delivered, council will have a chance to
vote to scuttle the whole thing.

"I intend to communicate directly with the federal government and request
them not to make any approvals until council has had a chance to consider
it," Miller said.

"I think that's consistent with what (Federal Transport Minister) David
Collenette has been saying, `it's up to the citizens of Toronto to
decide,' and by electing me they made a decision."

Paul Martin, prime minister-in-waiting, echoed those sentiments yesterday,
saying, "very clearly, we will take our cue from the municipal
government."

Miller had a meeting with senior bureaucrats yesterday on the bridge deal
and learned that there appears to be outstanding city approvals,
including:

 Documents protecting the city from any financial risk relating to the
building of the bridge and airport expansion.

 A public transit strategy plan showing how the port authority will
encourage half of all trips to the airport be done by transit.

 A demolition permit.

The 122-metre-long bridge is what is needed to turn what Miller refers to
as "a sleepy commuter airport"— which currently sees only five daily
flights to Ottawa — into a commercial airport.

The airport is expected to see 55 daily turboprop flights to 17 American
and Canadian cities.

The port authority, which runs the Toronto City Centre Airport, has long
maintained the only remaining things it needed to build the 122-metre
bridge were two federal permits; one dealing with boating traffic and the
other with aquatic life.

Lisa Raitt, CEO of the port authority, said she believed all the city
approvals were in place.

The only thing outstanding, she said, was a signed copy of the contract
with the construction company building the bridge and that was being sent
to the city today.

The demolition permit, Raitt said, is to remove a hangar in the way of the
bridge path, for which the hangar owner is responsible.

Raitt had expected the two outstanding federal permits to arrive
yesterday. They didn't.

"But we're told to expect the remaining approvals," Raitt said.

"Very soon."

The port authority has been saying it expects the permits "any day now"
for several weeks and that has resulted in speculation that the permits
are being held up for political reasons.

The bureaucratic details are complete, and are now on Fisheries and Oceans
Minster Robert Thibault's desk.

"The minister likes to look over material and make sure he's comfortable
with it," Thibault's press secretary Caroline Quinn said.

"We're expecting the decision to be made soon. I can't tell you when, but
we're expecting it to be sooner than later," Quinn said.

The port authority isn't just kicking up its heels waiting.

Earlier this week, it began the three-week construction site preparation,
including fencing and moving in materials and equipment, and that work
will continue, Raitt said.

While construction crews started their work on Tuesday, the port
authority's board of directors was holding a crisis meeting.

"Before (Tuesday) we didn't really know what Miller would do ... Now we
know his intention to seek a council reversal on a previous council
approval on the fixed link," Raitt said.

"What we have to figure out is if he is successful in getting a reversal
what that would mean to the Toronto City Centre Airport and the Toronto
Port Authority," she said.

Her comments were a departure from the, "full steam ahead" line that has
been the port authority's position through all previous attempts to derail
the bridge deal.

But the port authority seems far from ready to through in the towel.

"Somebody has been elected with 44 per cent of the vote, that's not the
majority of Torontonians not wanting the bridge," Raitt said.

"There's still a case to be made that 53 per cent of the people who voted
supported pro-bridge candidates," she said.

The port authority and the businessman who plans to run a new airline off
the island have said in the past that if the city broke off the bridge
deal, taxpayers could face a lawsuit in the range of $130 million.

But after meeting with senior city bureaucrats yesterday, Miller said that
he is more confident than ever that city taxpayers are in no danger of
being sued by the port authority, because it is a federal agency; or by
Robert Deluce, who plans to run a new airline, REGCO, off the island
airport after the bridge is built, because he must have an escape clause.

"There's no possible way that a rational businessman could have entered
into binding agreements that are going to cost him significant money when
there are (outstanding) approvals," Miller said.

Deluce also used the word rational yesterday. But he was talking about why
Miller and other councillors won't kill the bridge deal.

"We don't expect that when it's all put into perspective and one realizes
the ramifications of changing one's mind on a deal that was done by a
previous council ... that any rational individual would want to cancel
that kind of commitment," Deluce said.

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