Wow Joe,

So you are telling us:

• That pilots may or may not have aeronautical publications, which they may or may not read.
• Transgressions (that may cause serious accidents like the one in Hudson River) are hard to foresee or control.
• That controllers do not routinely volunteer pilot cautions to inexperienced pilots because they don't have time.
• There is no minimum altitude around residential areas, so a small plane which is subject to the vagaries of wind and air pressure could easily nick a tree and come down on houses.
• That controllers are not the police but they have the same effect as police on a highway.

But Joe, a highway is a narrow path as compared to the Toronto Harbour, it has few obstacles (such as trees, boats and buildings), it has vehicles of roughly the same size, traveling in the same direction, at more or less the same speed that are less subject to wind and air pressure.

If a speeding driver gets caught by police they are likely to get a huge fine. But what you are saying is controllers are not the police and they may or may not hand information about transgressions over to Transport Canada or the Toronto Port Authority.

Is this the same Port Authority that allows the Q400 with its violations of noise limitations and STOL to fly from the Island Airport? The Port Authority that would continue to allow curfew violations had the community not stepped up?

This is not reassuring.

Joana