McQueen Responds to CommunityAIR (as a comment on last week’s NOW article)

I was surprised to read some of these comments. The truth is clearly secondary to some NOW readers.

Brian Iler has clearly forgotten the TPA AGM on Sept. 3/09 where, in front of dozens of people, the TPA Board of Directors advised that it had had passed a motion requesting that NAVCAN implement a 2,250 foot height restriction across all of the Toronto Islands, not just those on the East end. Although he was in row 3 of the audience at the time, this positive and unilateral move by the TPA to make the Island Parks that much more enjoyable must have been missed by Mr. Iler as he heckled the stage.

As for the noise mitigation measures, Mr. Iler has been attending TPA-organized meetings for more than a year on the topic. He and 15 other community stakeholders have been deeply involved in the TPA's plans to further mitigate the ambient noise of the Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport.

It appears that any positive move by the TPA is ignored by Mr. Iler, but that will not hinder our efforts to continue to play a positive role in the City of Toronto -- as was evidenced earlier today by the unanimous approval by Toronto City Council of the "macro settlement" agreement between the TPA and the City.

Mark McQueen, Chairman, Toronto Port Authority

Yes, I was among the hecklers at the TPA AGM who were demanding that McQueen "answer the question" as he ducked responding in a substantive way to questions from the audience.

Same here – instead of telling us where we have made the "truth secondary", McQueen responds with a personal attack.

McQueen is right on one aspect: checking my notes of the TPA AGM, you did tell the meeting that the TPA had "asked Transport Canada and NAV Canada to toughen flight restrictions in "sensitive" areas". This had slipped my mind as we were quite focussed on the huge governance issues that came to our attention just prior to that meeting:

• the doctored TPA board minutes,
• director Colin Watson’s breach of the TPA’s Code of Conduct by casting the deciding vote to spend $5 million of public money to buy Porter as second ferry (when Watson had repeated described Porter CEO Robert Deluce as his friend, and the board had an opinion before it that Watson was in conflict and should NOT vote)
• McQueen’s own breach of the TPA’s Code of Conduct by casting the deciding vote to shut down an investigation into his claim (and that of former TPA CEO Lisa Raitt) of personal privilege in legal advice that cost the TPA $65,000, that McQueen and Ms. Raitt refused to disclose to the TPA board. McQueen adjourned the meeting before this could be raised.

Neither CommunityAIR, nor any of the communities along the waterfront have any further knowledge of the TPA’s request.

Expanding the designated noise sensitive areas is something the communities have sought for many months. We’d appreciate McQueen sharing with the waterfront communities copies of its correspondence.

But what are the "15 more airport noise mitigation changes coming in the new year."?

All the communities know is that the TPA’s consultants at the July 14 meeting of the Noise Management Study Advisory Group presented fifteen recommendations for noise mitigation – all of which are "off-the-shelf" and could have been implemented years ago, if the TPA was really sincere about addressing the massive impact the Island Airport’s noise has on the surrounding communities.

While the community reps at that meeting asked that they be implemented without delay, we were advised that "public consultation" had to be completed first. There has been no such consultation, nor any further communication from the TPA to the committee since that July meeting. Total and complete silence.

Given all of this, it is most surprising to find out - through a comment on a NOW story, if you will - that , apparently, all of these noise mitigation recommendations are "coming in the new year".

None of that is "known" by me or (to our knowledge) anyone else in the waterfront communities.

And surprising too, in light of the consultants’ Recommendation #15, which reads:

Of course, nothing of that sort has been implemented by the TPA to date. Surely that would be the first step!

Brian Iler
Chair, CommunityAIR