So let me get this straight.

The Toronto Port Authority has an agreement with Porter making it impossible for other commercial airlines to fly more than six take-offs and landings a day or three round trips a day.  That makes it impossible to establish a service for Jazz, or any other commercial airline, because they could never create a customer base to make it worthwhile to operate out of the Island Airport.  Meanwhile Porter seems to have almost unlimited flights in and out of the airport.

Monopolies, we are told, are bad for business and bad for the public.  Monopolies are created when one company drives out the competition.  There are so called "natural monopolies" when physical problems make it too costly for more than one company to enter the field.  Bell Canada is an example.  Bell is regulated by the federal government as a result.  There are public monopolies, like Ontario Hydro and the TTC.  Now the Toronto Port Authority has created another type of monopoly by signing agreements with Porter to give the company a monopoly over commercial flights out of the Island Airport.

This is a travesty.  The Toronto Port Authority has granted Porter Airlines a monopoly over the Island Airport.  This airport is a public facility.  It is owned by the people of Canada, and yet the Port Authority has signed agreements that deliver this public facility over to one private company. 

Justice, fairness, and the basic principle of business that monopolies are not in the public interest, demand that the commercial agreements that Porter has signed with the Toronto Port Authority should be declared illegal.

Where is the level playing field?

Bill Freeman