Toronto’s Billy Bishop Airport: Safety starts with people — not lake fill

Parks not Planes
6 hours ago
2 min read

Safety debates have a way of getting buried in engineering details. Runway lengths. Extensions. Technical compliance. But public safety has always rested on a much simpler principle: People come first.

In the case of Billy Bishop Airport, the city told the public it was putting “safety first.” What it actually addressed was passenger safety through lake fill – while failing to assess the safety of the people who live, learn, and gather nearby.

That distinction matters.

Safety is not a construction project.

Safety is a determination.

Despite decades of well-documented limitations caused by the airport’s restricted footprint, no comprehensive, people-first safety assessment was ever undertaken. There was no system-wide determination of whether this airport is safe, in this location, for the people around it.

This is not only about passengers.

It is about the public.

Homes sit within a few hundred metres of the runway.

A public elementary school operates nearby.

Public spaces surround the airport.

That is where the City’s core responsibility lies — not only to those boarding planes, but to the people who bear the risk of its operation every day.

Safety starts with people, not lake fill.

We already understand this principle everywhere else. We do not route heavy transport vehicles through residential neighbourhoods or past schools because of the risk they pose to people. That logic is well established in public safety.

Yet at Billy Bishop, 30-ton aircraft operate just hundreds of metres from homes and a school – without a people-first safety assessment.

We protect neighbourhoods from heavy transport — but not from aircraft.

Over time, politics changed.

Process replaced judgment.

Environmental assessments were narrowly scoped.

Meetings were held.

Boxes were checked.

But process was treated as progress, while the fundamental question was never answered: are people being protected?

To avoid reopening difficult debates, the City proceeded without a people-first safety assessment or meaningful public consultation on the future use of 210 acres of publicly owned waterfront land – land originally slated to return to public consideration in 2033.

Instead, permanent decisions were made without determining whether this airport belongs here at all. This is what happens when people-first decision-making is lost.