Conservative Leadership hopeful Pierre Poilievre would approve a future proposal for Billy Bishop airport to expand its runway, allowing jets to fly in and out of downtown Toronto.."Pearson International Airport is chaos. It’s so bad, Air Canada has had to cancel scheduled flights. Meanwhile, Toronto’s downtown airport wanted to expand - but gatekeepers stood in the way. Toronto island residents and waterfront condo owners opposed expansion," Poilievre said.."I will reverse Trudeau’s decision to side with them and allow jets to fly in and out of Billy Bishop airport to give people back control of their lives.".Currently, Turboprop aircraft are permitted to land at Billy Bishop Airport, so Porter Airlines schedules shorter flights suited to these aircraft. In 2019, Billy Bishop was the 9th busiest airport by passenger traffic, serving 2.8 million guests..Poilievre said if jets were allowed to fly, the airport could expand to over 4.8 million passengers per year, the equivalent of the Ottawa airport..If the gatekeepers got out of the way, and the expansion was back on the table, it would create 2000 new jobs, and all the new routes would take pressure off "overstressed" Pearson airport..But Poilievre said the Liberal government took the side of "gatekeepers" by coming out against plans for a longer runway at Billy Bishop. He said this lead to less competition, revenue, and choice, as well as fewer jobs, more traffic, and increased pollution..As prime minister, Poilievre would "open the skies to competition," by encouraging Porter Airlines to put the airport expansion proposal back on the table. His government would advise the city of Toronto and PortsToronto that it would approve a proposal to extend the runway providing the project is self-financed, so that taxpayers would not have to pick up the costs..A Poilievre government will also move to reopen the Tripartite Agreement with PortsToronto and the City of Toronto, with the intention of allowing jets to operate out of the airport..“This project would increase competition, shorten commute times, reduce gridlock, create 2000 paycheques, and inject $55 million in tax revenue”, said Poilievre. “It’s a win, win, win, win, win. So of course, Trudeau sided with the gatekeepers who fought tooth and nail to stop it."."Let’s expand Billy Bishop Airport and open competition in a country where the sky's the limit.".No Jets TO condemned this policy proposal. ."Not if we have anything to say about it!" said No Jets TO.."We will fight to save our waterfront and our planet."
