Like QQ Resident, who must live in the building next to me, I live across from the island airport. When I applied to live here, the airport was a sleepy little "general aviation" airport (a relic of the derelict industrial waterfront that Toronto was dismantling.) It was only after our residential neighbourhood was already planned that "limited" commercial flights became permitted under the Tripartite Agreement, to showcase locally made Dash 7s, flown by City Express.
By the time I moved in, I had to close my balcony door to answer the phone. Dark, greasy stains appeared around my door from air blown in from the airport, which is twice as close as the Gardiner is to me. My son's asthma medication was increased twice during our first year here. When City Express went under, our neighbourhood breathed a sigh of relief. By then, residents were flocking to the new apartments on the waterfront, and it was widely understood that a commercial airport was inconsistent with Toronto’s plans to make the waterfront a landmark residential and recreational area.
Enter the dreaded Toronto Port Authority, a new group of mainly unaccountable patronage appointees, foisted on Toronto against our city's wishes. They didn't consult the community; they sued. They sued the city; they sued unpaid community volunteers; they even sued our city councillor. They tried to build a bridge through our neighbourhood to the airport. Now they want to build a "pedestrian" tunnel to the airport that's wide enough for two lanes of vehicle traffic. They signed a sweetheart deal that gave Porter Airlines exclusive commercial access to the airport for several years.
To make "queuing lanes" for taxis and trucks, which are always honking and cutting each other off, the port authority took over a parking lot adjoining the park around which our neighbourhood is built. The port authority bullies us, and when that doesn't work, they sue us. Their CEO let us know that if they didn't get those “queuing lanes”, they'd exercise an easement, which would give them about half the park (the baseball diamond, soccer field, and World War II memorial), exclusively for "airport access".
Now, right in a residential/recreational neighbourhood, we have ever-expanding Porter Airlines, to be joined in months by Continental Airlines and Air Canada.
QQ Resident may not object to the air pollution that a major commercial airport has brought to the waterfront. He may not find the taxi and truck traffic a problem for children crossing to the park and school. He may not hear the planes rev their engines before taking off at 6:45 every morning. He may not hear the constant roar of airplanes that interferes with kids hearing each other in the schoolyard and park. He may not be aware that others in his building have moved away because of the noise and pollution. I expect that he may be wearing earbuds, and hearing only his own music.

A Bathurst Quay Resident