You lost. Time to give city back its seat ROSIE DIMANNO
Jul 31, 2026
Give it back, you stinker.
The Toronto Islands, Little Norway Park, a seat at the tripartite agreement table.
I'm looking at you, Premier Doug Ford, roughneck politician and purloiner of Toronto's waterfront. The man who turned Queen's Park into an imperialist regime and this city into a vassal township.
Be it a gravy plane of his own, sleazing to parcel off pieces of the protected Greenbelt for his developer buddies, transmogrifying Ontario Place into a garish spa and shoving a five-storey parking monstrosity up Toronto's wazoo, there's no cockamamie machination — underhanded or brazen — beyond Sneaky Dee's feverish fantasies.
Never got the giant ferris wheel and casino he coveted for the Port Lands back in his noob days as a local councillor. And his reproposed 50-kilometre tunnel beneath Highway 401 costing tens of billions of dollars — the same folly his government quietly shelved after a feasibility study in 2021 — remains as dopey as turning the pedestrian tunnel to Billy Bishop airport into a bicycle lane. (Believe you me, there are some fanatics who would love to demolish the airport altogether.)
But nothing has been as ham-fisted as Ford's usurping of Toronto land and assets at Billy Bishop and unilaterally giving the city a heaveho from the tripartite agreement governing the airport whilst installing the province as partner with the Toronto Port Authority and the federal government.
Prime Minister Mark Carney stunned and freaked out Ford a week ago by abruptly putting the kibosh on an expanded Billy Bishop that would accommodate jets for longer-distance commercial flights.
Staggered by the province's knockout blow, tomato can Toronto was revived by smelling salts administered by grassroots residential associations and a mighty counterpunch to the jaw delivered by Transport Canada-mandated public consultations, which revealed overwhelming opposition — some 87 per cent of 87,000 responses.
Eyeballing the byelection he was about to call in Beaches—east York and mindful of the 23 of 24 Toronto ridings held by Liberal MPS, Carney pivoted from airport extension receptive to, uh, that's a no. Turned out the conspiratorial fix wasn't in, as many had feared.
As a frequent flyer who lives a few blocks from the downtown lakefront, I admit I didn't initially hate Ford's grandiose plans for Billy Bishop. Toronto Pearson International Airport is a horror, its own decade-long modernization and expansion program notwithstanding, with a projected 65-million-passenger capacity by the early 2030s. Won't that be fun?
But Ford never lifted the blackout on his actual specs for BB — shouldn't assume such a thing even exists — neither broadly nor nittygritty, beyond extending the main runway by 900 metres, which had recreational boaters in a fury, while lakefront dwellers took to the ramparts over noise from jets overhead, traffic congestion around the terminal and quality of life issues.
As a downtown dweller and sailor, I nevertheless had a dim view of these whinges, skeptical of claims the waterfront should be protected for the enjoyment of all because my gut told me it was more about preserving the enjoyment of privileged lakeside condo owners, the upscale version of Ward and Algonquin Island colonists.
Particularly aggravating was Nieuport Aviation — owners of the terminal building, controlled by U.S. investment behemoth J.P. Morgan — had thrown its lobbying muscle around with senior PMO staff and other key influencers in pursuit of enriching expansion.
Mayor Olivia Chow is difficult to place on the BB spectrum, which provided the only combative episode in Wednesday's city council meeting, otherwise a victory lap for local pols bailed by Ottawa. Chow came rather late to the anti-expansion game, weirdly so for a progressive.
Coun. Brad Bradford, Chow's leading challenger for the mayor's job in October's municipal election, demanded to know when specifically Chow had learned from the province and the port authority about the proposal. Three times the rooster crowed on that question and three times Chow dodged it.
With switcheroo Carney finally picking the uh-uh side, it's all moot now, despite the province insisting no doesn't necessarily mean no. Indeed, no might mean maybe later, because the future of Billy Bishop has been a recurring debate for decades.
Lots of fingers crossed around the Tories that Carney will reopen the expansion conversation after the byelection.
Bill 110, the legislation that Ford rammed through to seize the islands and interlinked city land and ousting Toronto from the tripartite agreement, is still on the books and remains active law in the province. At the council meeting, Chow's motion to repeal the bill was heartily endorsed 25-1.
Ford's response: Pound sand. But as we've seen, Ford has retreated from other gonzo stings — if, sadly, not the mutilation of Ontario Place — when it's politically expedient. His approval rating has dropped to an all-time low of 24 per cent, as per a poll released last week, five points behind the leaderless Liberals.
Chow is absolutely right: Harpoon the legislative Kraken.
Give it all back, you smash-andgrab bully.
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