Feds say they’re not pushing Cape Breton airport
The federal Liberal government wants Nova Scotians to know it is not the champion of a new airport the province proposed for Inverness County, somewhere handy to the high-end Cabot Links golf resort.
As for the province, Premier Stephen McNeil has said the airport was only added to Nova Scotia’s list of federal-provincial infrastructure priorities at the urging of the federal government.
Confused? Don’t be. We are in a very political season. Politicians of all stripes are gauging the wind carefully and trying their damnedest not to sail headlong into it. Despite a big PR push by the airport’s proponents, who launched a website called BuildCapeBreton, the headwinds against the thing are picking up steam.
"This (airport) was not on the priority list for us (Nova Scotia). When the federal government wanted it on the list, we put it there," Premier McNeil said a couple of weeks ago, and he hasn’t veered from that since.
A federal official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said in an interview this week that projects under the infrastructure program must be proposed by the provinces – or, in some cases, by municipalities – and if Nova Scotia didn’t want the airport on its priority list, it shouldn’t have put it there.
The official said the proposed project would go through the usual vetting, after which the federal bureaucracy will make a recommendation to the minister responsible – at the moment that would be Nova Scotia’s own Bernadette Jordan. But even if the airport is recommended, and the minister approves, the project is a long way from a done deal.
It would have to clear a full federal environmental assessment and consultations would be held and accommodations made for any First Nations communities that could be affected.
The proponents of the airport – which would be a taxpayerfunded, brand new facility, built on public land somewhere in the vicinity of the golf resort – seemed to have the early momentum. But, since the resistance has mobilized, there is no doubt that – regardless of the premier’s characterization – the feds don’t want to be perceived as the drivers behind this proposal.
And who can blame them. The proposal calls for an airport to be constructed, perilously close to a wilderness reserve on Mason Mountain. It would be the second airport in the southern half of the island, an area that is home to fewer than 35,000 people. There is stiff opposition in the area, not least in Port Hawkesbury where municipal officials are understandably miffed that they could face governmentfunded competition to the Allan J. MacEachen airport just outside their town.
The MacEachen airport is only an hour’s drive to the golf resort and in recent years up to 75 per cent of travellers through that airport during golf season were headed to Cabot Links.
Realistically, there is no way the area can support two airports, and when proponents of the new facility claim it can, they damage their credibility. They lose more credibility when you take the time to match their lusty claims of jobs galore and riches for all with a threadbare business case posted to the website.
They make some pretty audacious claims about the economic benefits the new airport would deliver. For example, they claim the airport will mean 600 new jobs and attract commercial air carriers bringing tourists into the very heart of idyllic Cape Breton.
Commercial flights into Cape Breton’s major airport in Sydney have fallen off in recent years, and the MacEachen airport has been unable to attract interest from the commercial airlines.
Yet, we are to take it as a matter of faith that, if an airport were located just about 100 kilometres due west of Port Hawkesbury, the world would beat a contrail path to the very doors of Cape Breton tourism operators.
Right now, what had looked like a pre-election gambit by the federal Liberals to announce an $18-million infrastructure project in Cape Breton, seems likely to stay on the back burner until after the October election.
It wasn’t the obvious flaws in the business case that spooked the feds. But environmentalists concerned for the future of the wilderness preserve, worried about the massive carbon footprint of a new airport and the increase in private jet traffic, seem to have caught the feds’ attention.
To win in October, Liberals need the votes of Canadians who are justifiably anxious about the climate crisis and a myriad of related environmental issues, from biodiversity to wilderness preservation. A new airport in Inverness would have a negative environmental impact across the board. If Liberals go into the October election on the wrong side of those kinds of issues, they’ll be back on the opposition side of Parliament by Halloween.