CommunityAIR (Airport Impact Review)
E-mail           info@communityair.org

Web Site        www.communityair.org
Address    890 Yonge Street, Suite 700   Toronto, Ontario M4W 3P4

CommunityAIR - devoted to restoring the lands and harbour now occupied by the Toronto Island airport to park, recreation, and cultural uses.

Media Release — July 16, 2008

Contact:  Brian Iler  (work) 416-598-0103  x 114 or (cell) 416-835-4384

Toronto Port Authority Financial Statements Released
Verdict: Airport’s A Financial Bust – Still, and Losses Continue to Mount

The Toronto Port Authority reveals, in its just released – and much-delayed – Financial Statements for the 2007 calendar year that it has lost another $1,877,000 on its operations.

The financial situation is far worse than that figure represents, for two reasons:

• Money allegedly owed by the City of Toronto, but unpaid, for port user fees – for Island ferries(!) -  and the infamous litigation settlement of 2003, is included in income: $3,500,000 in 2007 alone (the total alleged to be owed by the City is shown as an asset – totalling $9,853,000)
• The TPA has not paid its fair share of taxes to the City – ever. The City has been forced to appeal to an obscure federal government tribunal – the PILTS Dispute Advisory Panel (its decision is due any day) claiming that if the TPA was assessed on the same basis as all other taxpayers in the City, it should have paid $36,893,000 (see Note 12 to the Financial Statements). The TPA claims it owes only $1,892,000.

Should the decision of the PILTS Dispute Advisory Panel support the City’s position, the TPA would be forced to sell some of its remaining property to pay its taxes.

The Canada Marine Act stipulates that the Port Authority must be self-sufficient. The Toronto Port Authority has never met that requirement since it was imposed on the City by the federal government in 1999.in its ten years of existence.

What’s most shocking in these Statements is that notwithstanding all the promises made that Porter Air would be the key to the Island Airport turnaround, the airport’s expenses increased so much that the Airport lost $1,359,000 in 2007 – certainly down from 2006’s massive loss of $3,504,000, but 48% worse than the dire loss incurred before Porter - $1,165,000 in 2005.

But even those loss figures for the Airport don’t represent the whole story: not included in the airport expenses is the amortization (or expensing of a portion of capital costs to reflect depreciation) of the $15,000,000 cost of the new ferry and terminals, built and acquired in 2006.  The increase in amortization expense from 2006 to 2007 of $706,000 is almost entirely related to that project, and should be applied to the airport. The result is a loss of about $2,065,000 on the airport – or a subsidy of $15.62 for each of the 132,200 enplaning Porter passenger (see Note 14).

“These statements are no surprise to us” said Brian Iler, Chair of CommunityAIR which campaigns for the closure of the Airport, and for greater accountability for its operations through transfer of TPA control to the City. “We’ve always thought Porter wouldn’t be the magic bullet that saved the TPA. It’s time to recognize the obvious, and put that airport out of its misery.”