(Editor's note:  This is an important exchange of e-mail messages on the issue of helicopter noise.)

August 10, 2009

Dear Mr. Iler:

As the A/Regional Director of the Civil Aviation Branch, I have been asked to reply to your emails dated June 17 and June 22, 2009 to Michael Stephenson, A/Regional Director General, Transport Canada. 

Regarding your query with respect to the inclusion of helicopters in the upcoming actual NEF contours being developed, please be advised that Transport Canada is working on establishing flight paths for helicopters operating from the Toronto City Centre Airport.  The Tri-partite Agreement does not require helicopters to be included until such time after the paths have been implemented and followed for six months of a year. Based on our interpretation, the slides attributed to the Toronto Port Authority that you provided to me indicate that the DHC-8 Q400 is compliant with the terms of the Tripartite Agreement, however, for clarification you may wish to contact the originators of the slides.

As you point out, it is worth a reminder that the Tripartite Agreement is an agreement between the City of Toronto, the Toronto Port Authority and Transport Canada. Opinions of individuals or groups outside of those parties are certainly considered, but remain outside this group of signatories.

Regarding your email to Michael Stephenson dated June 22, 2009, in which you request copies of the NEFs, Section 4.3 of the document from which you cite, states, in part: “The preparation and approval of noise contours for airports that are neither owned, nor operated by the Federal Government is not a responsibility of Transport Canada.”  Since Transport Canada’s devolution of airports, section 4.2.1, to which you refer, is no longer accurate. It is our intent to clarify this on our website and we thank you for bringing it to our attention.

I trust this addresses the points you raised in your emails to the A/Regional Director General. If you require anything further, you may contact me at: joseph.szwalek@tc.gc.ca.

Sincerely,

 Joseph M.  Szwalek
A/Regional Director Civil Aviation

August 31, 2009

Dear Mr. Szwalek:

Thanks for responding.

The only reason flight paths have not been specified by now is that your department has ignored its obligation to do so under the tripartite agreement when

• the 4,000 helicopter flights per year threshold has been exceeded, and
• the City of Toronto has requested same.  

Requests were made by the City on March 1, 2006 and again on April 25, 2008. Flight paths are required to be specified within 180 days of such a request – see s. 35(1) of the agreement). Transport Canada has yet t do so, and is in flagrant breach of this requirement.

If you had honoured the first request, flight paths would have been specified no later than September, 2006. The second, by October, 2008. You cannot now take advantage of your department’s own breach of its obligations to now refuse to include helicopter noise in the current – and itself long-delayed – NEF contour study.

This is not an academic exercise: the noise from the Island airport is increasingly offensive and must be curtailed – at least to the level mandated by the tripartite agreement. Unless you fulfil your responsibilities under that agreement, the communities affected have no way of knowing whether compliance  exists.

As you may know, the TPA claims they do not have any prior NEF studies in its possession. How they could ensure that current NEF noise is in compliance with the tripartite agreement as a result is perplexing, to be sure.

And how could the Q400 be in compliance with the tripartite agreement? It

• is not a Dash-8 as it existed when the tripartite agreement was signed, or a STOL aircraft
• It breaches two of the three noise limits – the “averaging” permitted for the purpose of complying with ICAO limits are clearly inapplicable to the tripartite agreement noise limits, as much as the TPA wishes they would.

The clear impression is that your department is so wedded to the Toronto Port Authority’s plans to expand the Island Airport, and to Porter’s success, that you have lost sight of your regulatory responsibilities to the people of Canada.

Brian Iler, chair
CommunityAIR