News & Media

Sh*t in the Water / Spa on the Land - Speaker Series 16 - Jan 22-2025

Join us Wednesday, January 22, at 7 pm for Speaker Series 16 presented in co-operation with our sister organization Ontario Place for All,as we explore the potential toxic impact of the planed combined sewer overflow that has the clear potential to spread polluted water, including sewer run off, around the West Island at Ontario Place and the planed 'new beach'.

Our featured speakers will include - 

Norm Di Pasquale - Ontario Place for All Co-Chair.

Ann-Elisabeth Samson - Ontario Place for All Co-Chair & Rower. 

Click here to RSVP

The Harbour Dock Walls Are Unsafe

 

Some Toronto Harbour dock walls are collapsing. Many have decrepit, unusable safety ladders, or none at all. Yet the water can be cold enough to kill you, and the dock walls are high and unclimbable. WFA Chair Ed Hore recently did a Report on the condition of the dock walls, pointing out the worst spots, with photos taken from his kayak. An Appendix has pictures of all the harbour dock walls.

Farewell to X we've made a splash under a nice BlueSky

Breaking: Waterfront for All will no longer be active on X (formerly Twitter). 

We are now on the new and fast growing BlueSky you can find us there via your web browser at https://bsky.app/profile/waterfront4all.bsky.social.

Or you can download and sign up for the BlueSky App. 

We are pleased to join a positive new social media site that focuses on engagement and information sharing, rather than misinformation and disinformation. Hope to see you there!

Find out more about BlueSky https://bsky.social/about/blog/11-29-2024-engagement

 

Harbourfront Rink Reborn

Many people were upset when Harbourfront's beloved skating rink by the lake was unexpectedly dismantled and taken away in 2023 due to lack of funds. Waterfront for All and two neighbourhood residents' associations objected.

The rink was a big wintertime draw for the waterfront. Its sudden removal seemed symptomatic of a general decline of Harbourfront Centre.

Thanks to Councillor's Ausma Malik's successful motion in City Council on October 10, 2024, there will be a seasonal rink set up this winter at Harbourfront.

There's also a vibrant new CEO at Harbourfront, Cathy Loblaw, and we welcome her!

City Council agrees to RESA 1

City Council voted on October 9, 2024, to accept RESA 1, the "minimal landmass" option presented by Ports Toronto. Ports Toronto had hoped to get City approval of other options, RESA 2 or 3, both major expansions of the airport involving as much as three times as much landfill. The federal government requires run-off areas at the end of runways known as Runway End Safety Areas (RESAs), which in the case of the island airport must be built by July 14, 2027.

Ports Toronto also hoped to get City Council to agree on October 9 to an extension of the Tripartite Agreement, the lease and operating agreement at the airport, for 40 years beyond its present expiry in 2033, that is, until 2073. Council allowed a limited extension for as much as 12 years, but only if Ports Toronto satisfies the City it can't afford to build RESA 1 (cost: around $65 million) without the extension. But City Staff have already concluded it has the money, and we agree. 

Next step: will Ports Toronto defy the City, and insist on airport expansion now? They may. We’ll find out at Ports Toronto’s meeting at 2 pm or 6 pm, Tuesday, October 15, 2024. Come and have your say!

City Council RESA vote coming

City Council will vote at its meeting October 9 - 11, 2024 whether to adopt the recommendations in the September 27 Staff Report .

It should do so! Here's our brief communication to Councillors as to why.

We believe and hope most Councillors will vote tomorrow to follow the Staff recommendations, adopted by Executive Committee, the Mayor and Councillor Ausma Malik: authorize the smallest, least intrusive option for Runway End Safety Areas, known as RESA 1, so as to deal with the pressing federal safety requirements now (RESAs must be built by July 14, 2027). As a separate matter, recommends Staff, take the time to study the bigger issues, such as whether the Tripartite Agreement, the airport land lease and operation agreement, should be extended in some form past its 2033 expiry, whether the airport should be expanded, including studies and public consultation exploring its adverse impacts and upsides, including we hope consideration and study of potential alternative uses of the land. 

It would be a crazy leap for Councillors to do what Ports Toronto and Nieuport want: reject city staff‘s recommendations, meaning: extend the tripartite agreement for 40 years NOW, and authorize the airport to build the other, bigger RESA options - allowing a huge non-safety-related airport expansion immediately. Ports Toronto and Nieuport demand Council vote to agree to all this NOW without any study of the local impacts, ecological and health issues, transportation efficiency, economic effects or consequences on future development in the Portlands and elsewhere.

We are deeply concerned that airport industry lobbyists have been misrepresenting the position of community representatives.

Contrary to the findings in the Staff Report, Ports Toronto claims it needs an extension of the Tripartite Agreement because it otherwise can't afford to build RESA 1. That's not true.

Safety First! Stop the island airport’s lobbying bullies!

Waterfront for All

 

Safety First! Stop the island airport’s lobbying bullies!

The federal government requires that Toronto Island Airport build Runway End Safety Areas (RESAs) in less than three years - by July 14, 2027.

City staff in an exhaustive report dated September 27, 2024 recommended focussing on safety for now; build the simplest, least expensive option that keeps people safe, the so-called RESA 1 option. Otherwise Ports Toronto would miss the deadline.

Staff recommended that bigger questions about the airport and its future should be studied over the next few years with lots of public consultation. Executive Committee of Council adopted that staff recommendation on October 1.

But Ports Toronto and Nieuport have been lobbying Councillors for months to ignore the staff report, and expand the airport NOW in ways NOT related to safety.

They demand Council allow a much bigger airport NOW.  Most of all, they demand an automatic extension of the Tripartite Agreement past its expiry in 2033 NOW - so the airport would exist and expand for an extra 40 years - without any public consultation or study.  

The matter goes to City Council, in a vote this coming Wednesday, October 9, 2024.

Call or write your councillor on Monday before this goes to City Council. Click here to check your Ward & Find your Councillor.

Tell him or her Council should adopt the Staff Report and its recommendations when Council votes on October 9!

Torontonians should NOT vote away their right to have a say on the future of the island airport!

___________________

Help us continue to work for a Waterfront for All, where we all get a say! Please DONATE today.

Waterfront for All
https://www.waterfrontforall.ca/

Waterfront for All RESA Submission to the City of Toronto

Submission re Island Airport Runway End Safety Areas, 
City Public Input Meeting, Enercare Centre, September 24, 2024


Executive Summary


The City should not agree to any amendment of the Tripartite Agreement in the current RESA process - except, at most, a narrowly-defined permission to do the minimum build-out needed to comply with the federal RESA regulations, nothing more. Much more information is required before even that is granted.

Council should on no account agree to any extension now of the 50 year Tripartite Agreement past its current expiry in 2033. Much further study is required before Council can make an informed decision on the long-term future of the airport. There’s no time to do that now.

 

The RESA Regulations, Ports Toronto’s delays and secretiveness.

The federal regulations are described in the background materials. Some kind of RESA structure must be built by July 12, 2027. Ports Toronto has so far not told anyone what it wants to build.

Yet the regulations have been under discussion since 2010, when the Federal government first said it intended to go ahead with them. They were published in final form in 2021, three years ago. The City should not be rushed by Ports Toronto’s delay and procrastination.

The key underlying question: does it really make sense go through all this for a duplicative airport used by less than 5% of Toronto’s air travelers? Maybe it’s cheaper, easier, and less disruptive to consolidate airline operations at Pearson, 20 or so km away. Council should not agree to any RESA option without detailed drawings and information on what construction disruption, noise and pollution can be expected, and an environmental assessment. Council needs to be clear what it is voting on.

Ports Toronto has held only one public meeting to date, on July 17, 2024. It outlined very briefly what it called “options” for RESA compliance.

Meaningful consultations with the public, and an informed vote by Council, are essentially impossible at this time due to the lack of information from Ports Toronto.

... /2

City of Toronto meeting on the Island Airport Tuesday, September 24

Passionate Torontonians throng airport RESA meeting

Hundreds came out to the City’s September 24 consultation on Runway End Safety Areas (RESAs) at the island airport on a rainy night. Federal regulations call for RESAS at the island airport, to be designed and built by July 2027 if the airport is to carry on. Ports Toronto says there are three options (RESA 1, 2 and 3) ranging in cost from $60 to almost $200 million, depending on how many taxiways, extra roads, tunnels etc are added. What if Ports Toronto can’t afford it? Maybe airport services would be consolidated at Pearson, which over 95% of Toronto air travellers already use anyway - served by the UP Express link. And you could have a park, housing or other cool stuff instead - which almost everyone at the meeting, it seems, would rather have.

 

 

 

 

Sign up for updates

Email: