Port Authorities across Canada have come under increasing attack by local citizens, and the complaints are remarkably similar from coast to coast.  Port Authorities are federal government agencies but they are administered by independent local boards appointed by the Minister of Transport.  Decisions of the board and staff of the port authorities rarely take into account the concerns of local people. 

The Toronto Port Authority is a case in point.  The board and the TPA senior management are focused almost entirely on providing services to port users and the those who use the Island Airport.  They have little concern with the demands of citizens.  The TPA Board members defend this by saying that their mandate, under the Canada Marine Act, is to support port users.

This may have been appropriate half a century ago, when the Waterfront was primarily the location of factories and warehouses, but today Toronto's Waterfront is going through the most significant transformation of any urban area in the country.  The Waterfront has become the city's major tourist destination.  The harbour, Lake Ontario and the Islands, along with the Waterfront have become the prime recreational area of the people of Toronto.  Condos are sprouting everywhere.  When the renewal is finally complete there will be 100,000 new Waterfront residents and another 100,000 people who will work on the city's Waterfront. 

Meanwhile the TPA continues to be concerned almost exclusively about the industrial needs of the airport and the port users.  They act as if the massive Waterfront transformation was not happening by continuing to support the expansion of the Island Airport.  At the moment Porter Airlines has six aircraft but they have announced they will expand to twenty planes.  Already the expansion of the airport is making the Waterfront intolerable for residents and visitors.  Aircraft noise is increasing in intensity and frequency.  Air pollution rains down on the neighbourhood.  Traffic in Bathurst Quay neighbourhood is multiplying exponentially.  When citizens complain they are simply ignored or incidents are explained away with trite excuses.

Members of CommunityAIR, the mayor and many of the members of city council, have advocated that the Toronto Port Authority be dissolved and turned over to the City of Toronto.  Municipal governments are the appropriate bodies to deal with issues such as planning, excessive noise, air pollution and transportation, not unelected appointees who see their mandate as simply supporting industrial interests.  Fortunately some people who understand how governments work are now finally being heard.

There has been a controversy about the Oshawa Port Authority and in 2007, Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities Lawrence Cannon, appointed former Mayor of Toronto David Crombie as an independent representative to help sort through the "contradictory and sometimes hostile perspectives" of the parties vying for control of the harbour's future.

Crombie has now issued his final report.  He recommends that the government implement change on Oshawa by following three concepts.

1. Ownership of the port and surrounding lands be vested in the City of Oshawa
   
2. The land must be shared by all stakeholders (industrial, residential, retail and recreational) in a mixed-use environment
   
3. Any profits made by the sale of land should be put back into the Port for further improvement of the waterfront.

The most significant part of the Crombie Report is the recommendation that the Port Authority be dissolved and political control of the waterfront be turned over to the City of Oshawa.  If this is appropriate for a small city like Oshawa it is absolutely necessary for a city the size of Toronto. 

Let's bring David Crombie home.  The federal government should appoint him to make recommendations on the Toronto Port Authority with the mandate to make recommendations on how the administration of the Waterfront can be made accountable to the people of the city.

Bill Freeman