GTAA: “Let’s get a fair deal”

[mreclectic]

GTAA to launch the “Let’s Get a Fair Deal†airport rent campaign at Toronto Pearson

Date of Release: 2007/02/09

On Monday, February 12th at 1:00 pm, the Greater Toronto Airports Authority (GTAA) will launch the “Let’s get a fair deal†campaign at Toronto Pearson.

Media are invited to Terminal 3, east end departures level for the launch of this campaign which asks for a fair deal on airport rent from the Government of Canada.

Lloyd McCoomb, GTAA President and CEO will introduce the campaign and outline the unfair rent that the government charges at Toronto Pearson.

Mr. McCoomb will be joined by representatives of the Air Transport Association of Canada (ATAC), the International Air Transport Association (IATA), local business groups and airlines operating out of Toronto Pearson.

During the campaign, passengers will be informed of the unfair burden created by the share of airport rent imposed on Toronto by the Government of Canada. Supporters will be asked to sign a ballot supporting the position of the GTAA.

Please join the GTAA in asking the Government of Canada to fulfill their pre-election promise to address the rent issue.

Monday, February 12th, 1:00 pm, Terminal 3, east end departures level



Contact: Scott Armstrong
Manager, Media Relations (416) 776-3709

 

[unimaginative2]

Airport tax offers Ottawa untapped green money

JOHN BARBER


Good news: Our very own Lester B. Pearson International Airport is the most expensive place in the world to land a big jet -- the result of a stiff federal tax that accounts for more than a third of the airport's notoriously high landing fees and plays no small part in suppressing local demand for planet-wrecking air travel.

With unnecessary air travel now becoming a major issue in the global-warming debate -- British Prime Tony Blair was recently pilloried in his country for booking a family vacation in Miami -- Toronto is once again uniquely positioned to lead the world.

European environmentalists and their parliamentary followers fume about international conventions that prevent them from taxing the bejeepers out of jet fuel, but we Canadians have circumvented the problem with clever federal trickery. The result: Nowhere in the world is air travel so heavily taxed as it is right here in Toronto.

The trick was to disguise this innovative tax as a form of rent for the land occupied by airports. As the Greater Toronto Airports Authority always complains, however, the so-called rent is assessed according to income, not land value. Like other corporate and personal income taxes, it is steeply progressive: The more money an airport earns from its environmentally destructive business, the more it pays the man.

But this disguised tax is even more onerous than its corporate equivalent. Corporations are allowed to deduct the costs of servicing debt from their income, but every nickel the GTAA raises to pay off its massive, $6-billion debt is taxed. Unheard-of in the private sector, this salutary discrimination can only help to suppress further airport expansion.

The only flaw in this otherwise perfect gem of an environmental policy is that Ottawa doesn't recognize it as such. The Liberals lowered so-called ground rents in response to pressure from the airports, and at the time opposition Conservatives accused them of not going far enough -- "picking on GTA residents and taxing travellers to death," according to MP Peter Van Loan, currently Government House Leader. Whatever their superficial differences, both parties agree that cheap air travel is a good thing. They are oblivious to the environmental advantages of high federal airport taxes.

Emboldened by increasing evidence of political myopia, the GTAA launched a publicity campaign last week to enlist local hearts and minds in its quest for lower taxes. The agency is right to complain that Toronto gets gouged by the current scheme. As with any other properly designed income tax, the richest pay the most -- and Pearson is by far Canada's richest airport. It is also the most indebted, meaning it suffers most when debt service costs are taxed.

But would Pearson users still feel "gouged" if they knew some of the handsome levy the airport currently remits to Ottawa -- $150-million a year -- was used to support more sustainable modes of travel?

Earmarked to combat global warming caused by air travel, that money could be used to build a high-speed electric rail system throughout Southern Ontario and Quebec.

And we already know that aviation can carry the load. Despite all its complaints, Pearson's high taxes have done nothing to prevent more and more Canadians from flying.

It's a funny world.

Everybody seems to agree that road tolls would help suppress unnecessary car use and, more important, raise money for expanded public transit.

The problem is that no politician dares be the one to impose them. Yet here we have a much more progressive federal levy on air travel already in place, working beautifully, and no mainstream federal politician has the wit to use it. Instead, they all want to phase it out.

European governments that are truly committed to fighting global warming would love to have such a tool at hand.

But Ottawa acquired the thing by accident and, despite its recent conversion to the green cause, has no idea what to do with it.

jbarber@globeandmail.com

 

[rbtaylor]

But would Pearson users still feel "gouged" if they knew some of the handsome levy the airport currently remits to Ottawa -- $150-million a year -- was used to support more sustainable modes of travel?

Interesting thought. Take the ground rent and dump it directly into Green initiatives in the local area. Picking up and protecting $130M worth of land and planting $20M in trees per year in Southern Ontario would make a pretty substantial difference over a decade.

 

[interchange42]

Then green-tax every airport in Canada equally. Sheesh.

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