{"id":157498,"date":"2026-08-06T02:29:43","date_gmt":"2026-08-06T02:29:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/157498\/"},"modified":"2026-08-06T02:29:43","modified_gmt":"2026-08-06T02:29:43","slug":"carney-suggests-island-airport-jets-not-nixed-in-perpetuity-forever-is-a-long-time-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/157498\/","title":{"rendered":"Carney suggests island airport jets not nixed in perpetuity: ‘forever is a long time’"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a> Prime Minister Mark Carney speaks at a housing announcement in Toronto, on Wednesday, Aug. 5, 2026. THE CANADIAN PRESS\/Sammy Kogan – The Canadian Press <\/p>\n

TORONTO \u2014 Prime Minister Mark Carney is not ruling out ever allowing jets to land at Toronto’s island airport, but he is focused for now on a broader transportation picture, he said Wednesday. <\/p>\n

Ontario Premier Doug Ford had pitched a plan to expand Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport to allow jets to land, framing it as a way to boost the economy. <\/p>\n

It was an idea Carney at one point said was “interesting,” but his government would later nix it. <\/p>\n

“Interesting’ has a quite wide range of meanings,” Carney noted at a press conference Wednesday when asked about it. <\/p>\n

The land is governed as a tripartite agreement that was formerly between the city of Toronto, the federal government and the Toronto Port Authority, which is a federal agency, but the province took over the city’s role earlier this year. <\/p>\n

Carney’s government rejected Ford’s vision last month following a consultation largely opposed to the idea of jets. The results of the consultation were clear, Carney said, but “forever is a long time.” <\/p>\n

His government is developing a “comprehensive” approach to transportation, touching on airports large and regional as well as rail, he said. <\/p>\n

“(Billy Bishop) is a small part of a much bigger puzzle, and we need to focus on those other puzzle pieces,” Carney said. <\/p>\n

Sources who were granted anonymity because they were not authorized to share internal discussions have said Ford and Carney had a handshake deal in which the province supported Carney’s high-speed rail plan in exchange for federal support for the airport expansion. <\/p>\n

However, when asked Wednesday if he ever told Ford he would greenlight the project, Carney said no. <\/p>\n

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 5, 2026. <\/p>\n

Allison Jones, The Canadian Press <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Prime Minister Mark Carney speaks at a housing announcement in Toronto, on Wednesday, Aug. 5, 2026. THE CANADIAN…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":157499,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[98],"tags":[3168,4079,8887,111,989,48,8886],"class_list":["post-157498","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mark-carney","tag-billy-bishop","tag-doug-ford","tag-island-airport","tag-mark-carney","tag-the-canadian-press","tag-toronto","tag-toronto-port-authority"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157498","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=157498"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157498\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/157499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=157498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=157498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=157498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}