Originally conceived in the 1930s as the main airport for Toronto, the Toronto island airport (today known as Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport) has long been a source for political debate as to the proper use of its waterfront site in central Toronto. Building the airport necessitated the closure of park lands, a hotel, cottages and an amusement park on the Toronto Island site. Construction of the airport in the late 1930s was stopped and started and its final construction only went ahead after the death of the Toronto mayor who had opposed its construction.
At the same time, Toronto built Malton Airport as a secondary air field, but it was Malton that became Toronto's main airport (today known as Toronto Pearson International Airport). This fact meant that the island airport became used mainly for general civil aviation and lost money on its operations. During the 1940s and 1950s, several political leaders proposed the expansion of the airport as a way to enable scheduled passenger airlines and reduce the airport deficits. An expansion of runways and facilities was completed in 1962, financed by the sale of Malton Airport to the Government of Canada. Despite the improvements, the island airport did not become a passenger airline hub, and its existence came into question, starting in the 1960s. In 1968, the site was proposed for a large housing development known as 'Harbor City.' In the 1970s, as part of a debate around airports serving Toronto, the airport became the focus of efforts to set up a network of airports in Canada serving Short-Take-Off-And-Landing (STOL) regional airlines. From a peak of over 200,000 annual flights in the 1960s, the island airport went into decline even as several regional airlines operated at the airport from the 1970s onwards. The annual operating deficit forced its operator, the Toronto Harbour Commission (THC) to sell land to pay the ongoing deficit and by the 1990s, the airport was again facing questions about its continued existence.
In 2000, the Government of Canada re-organized the operation of port operations in Canada, including the formation of the Toronto Port Authority (TPA) to replace the Harbour Commission as the operator of Toronto Harbour and the island airport, with a focus on self-sufficiency and business practices. The new agency's plans to expand usage at the airport to erase its deficit, awoke a long-simmering disagreement between community groups and Toronto politicians wishing to close the airport and the business community which supported the expansion of its usage. The TPA welcomed a new regional airline Porter Airlines and started construction of a bridge to the airport in 2003. The bridge to the airport became a mayoral election issue and the City of Toronto forced its cancellation. Despite the opposition, the TPA bought new passenger ferries and built new facilities for passengers. For its part, Porter built a new passenger terminal. Increases in flights and a new passenger user fee imposed by the TPA led to the airport becoming self-sufficient by 2010. In 2012, the TPA began a project to link the airport to Toronto with a pedestrian tunnel, funded by the passenger user fee, which is intended to facilitate a further increase in flights. In 2013, Porter proposed to expand the airport to fly jets from the airport, but this was cancelled in 2015.
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