What will Hanlan’s Point look like if Billy Bishop Airport expands?

After an exhausting Pride weekend filled with endless hours of dancing, partygoers have taken a short ferry ride to Toronto’s islands on Monday afternoon to recharge under the sun at Hanlan’s Point Beach.

Swimmers and sunbathers are frolicking around on this hot June day—some nude, others in skimpy bathing suits and jockstraps—on Canada’s oldest surviving LGBTQ2S+ space.

Despite years of significant erosion, which has pushed the shoreline closer inland and reduced the beach to only a sliver of what it once was, queer and trans people keep coming back to the area to escape the city’s noise, vibe with their peers or perhaps search for an intimate encounter in the bushes.

The sound of crashing waves, chit-chat and music from portable speakers is briefly interrupted by the rumbling sound of an airplane that flies just a few hundred metres over the heads of beachgoers.

Everyone appears accustomed to the engine noise, which isn’t surprising, considering that Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport has occupied land just north of the beach since 1939. But a new idea from Ontario premier Doug Ford to expand the airport to accommodate larger and noisier jets is raising some eyebrows among critics who say the concept undermines Hanlan’s survival and puts its existence at risk.

“When you think about the space that’s around the airport, Hanlan’s Point is right there,” Norm Di Pasquale, program manager of the advocacy campaign NoJetsTO, tells Xtra. “So when you want to make the airport bigger, that is likely going to be one of the first places that’s going to be at risk.”

The Toronto Port Authority, which jointly operates the airport under a tripartite agreement with the City of Toronto and Transport Canada, has stated that an expansion would likely cost between $4 and $5 billion over 25 years and would transport an estimated 10 million passengers annually.

“In terms of construction, the effect is going to be immense,” Di Pasquale explains. “They want to expand the runway into Lake Ontario by 900 metres, which is taller in height than the Burj Khalifa.”

“Water is a very difficult thing to construct on, so you need a ton more material than if you were doing this on dry land. So it’s going to take longer, cost more and lead to more disruption,” he added. “There will be unbearable construction noise on our central waterfront for 25 years.”

Di Pasquale also raises environmental concerns about wildlife in the area, and says that bird nesting zones will be impacted by flight corridors and jet blast. Then, there’s the issue about sewage.

“The environmental assessment said that it would take twice the amount of time to flush sewage out of the central waterfront,” he explains. “When it rains heavily, there is a sewage outflow that goes out into Lake Ontario and instead of taking six days to clear, it could take 12 days to clear and that is going to have an impact on water quality for swimmers and aquatic wildlife.”

While the province has not released an official proposal or detailed plan, last month, the Ford government passed Bill 110 to seize control of city-owned airport lands in an attempt to bypass municipal laws and get the expansion built by designating the area a “special economic zone.”

Toronto mayor Olivia Chow characterized the move as a “land grab” and called it “undemocratic overreach.” Meanwhile, Prime Minister Mark Carney, who previously called Ford’s idea an “interesting” vision for the airport with “big possibilities,” changed his tune last month and said he hasn’t formed an opinion on the plan.

As questions about the future of Hanlan’s Point continue to swirl, Xtra reached out to Carney, Ford, the Toronto Port Authority and local Liberal MPs Evan Solomon and Chi Nguyen, but only heard back from Nguyen.

In a statement to Xtra, Nguyen, the MP for Spadina—Harbourfront, says, “My position is straightforward: I will not support any proposal that puts Little Norway Park, Bathurst Quay, the Toronto Islands, Hanlan’s Point, Lake Ontario, our beaches, green space, schools or community spaces at risk.

“Torontonians must be consulted before any major decisions are made,” Nguyen, whose jurisdiction includes Hanlan’s Point, adds. “Bill 110 may change the province’s role at the table, but it does not erase Toronto residents, the City of Toronto or the federal government’s responsibility to protect the public interest.”

In June, the federal government, through Transport Canada, began public consultations on the future of the airport, which will remain open for feedback until July 24. Key priorities for bureaucrats include noise mitigation, environmental measures and community infrastructure. 

Now advocates and local politicians like Spadina—Fort York NDP MPP Chris Glover are hoping the federal government will step in and quash the airport expansion before a plan is finalized.

“We don’t need a consultation to realize that this is a bad idea,” Glover tells Xtra. “We need the federal government to exercise its authority and responsibility to the people of Toronto and stop Doug Ford’s takeover of the airport and the islands.

“The only one asking for this is the Wall Street bank that stands to profit from each jet that takes off and lands,” he adds.

Glover’s comments come on the heels of news reports that a leading American bank could stand to benefit from the airport expansion and is behind a massive lobbying effort around the issue targeting officials at all levels of government.

In a statement to Xtra, a spokesperson for Chow says, “Reporting on links to American Wall Street investment firms and corporate banks has also raised serious concerns about who stands to benefit from this land deal.”

The spokesperson says Chow would “welcome the federal government being clear on its position on the proposal, and encourage Torontonians to use the federal consultation to make their position known.”

For advocacy groups like Friends of Hanlan’s, the issues surrounding the airport expansion aren’t just bureaucratic: they’re personal.

“Hanlan’s has been a queer space for nearly a century,” Travis Myers, co-founder of Friends of Hanlan’s, tells Xtra. “It’s Canada’s oldest surviving queer space, and it’s the historic site of the first Pride in Canada that happened in 1971.

“What makes Hanlan’s so special is that it’s a no-cost, barrier-free place for the queer community to gather as a whole,” Myers explains. “At a time when a lot of our spaces are disappearing, the places that are left are paid-access.

“If you go to Church Street, you have to buy a beer in order to sit on a patio, or you have to pay a cover to get into a bar, which is driven by economic purposes,” he adds. “Hanlan’s isn’t that. It’s a place where people without cottages can just go and exist. There’s very few places like that globally, so it’s amazing that we do have that here in Toronto.”

When asked about the potential threat posed by the idea of expanding the airport, Myers lays the blame with the Toronto Port Authority, which he characterizes as an unaccountable, unelected federal entity making decisions about precious city space without public recourse.

“Doug Ford is going to do what he’s going to do,” Myers says. “He’s like a kid who’s going to take crayons and draw on the wall. [Toronto Port Authority] is supposed to be the babysitter. They are the people who are giving him the crayons and letting him do it.”

He claims that Toronto Port Authority has abdicated its duty as a port authority.

“They’ve given up on caring about the water and the shoreline and are all in on the economic expansion of the island airport,” he adds.

Toronto Port Authority did not respond to Xtra’s request for comment, including specific questions about its lobbying efforts with the federal and provincial government.

Despite the potential threat posed by the airport expansion, the City of Toronto is moving ahead with plans to restore and protect Hanlan’s Point Beach. Last month, city council passed a motion that aims to fix erosion and rebuild the shoreline.

The plan includes adding 20,000 cubic metres of sand for the 2027 beach season and allocates $400,000 to fund additional planting work.

“The City will also develop a longer-term plan to improve the beach experience, protect the natural environment and work with community groups on how the site is managed and improved,” Chow’s spokesperson confirms.

Advocates are now putting pressure on the federal government to make sure that Hanlan’s stays protected for years to come.

“The prime minister and the federal Liberal government can do something here that will be much simpler than an ongoing battle between the province, community groups and the Toronto Port Authority that will last several years,” Myers says. 

“We saw the prime minister marching at the Toronto Pride Parade and he posted online expressing his support for the community,” Myers adds. “I think there is a great opportunity for him to put his words into action and show what protecting the queer community looks like in practice.”