The Toronto Port Authority is warning that Transport Canada might order a 50-metre extension at each end of the island airport’s runway for safety reasons, regardless of the Porter Airline proposal.

“We expect that as early as 36 months from now, Transport Canada will require every major commercial airport, including Billy Bishop, to install an extended (runway end safety area),” said port authority chairman Mark McQueen at a luncheon speech to the Toronto Region Board of Trade on Monday.

That could mean at least 50 metres of “land mass at each end of our current runway, all of which would need to be built into the water beside the airport,” he said, and that’s regardless of whether Porter Airlines gets its wish to fly larger Bombardier jets there.

To date, Transport Canada says it has not conducted a specific study on runway end safety areas at the island airport. But in July, it put out a request for proposals for an independent review of runway end safety areas at airports in Canada.

City of Toronto staffers, and hired consultants, are studying a proposal from Porter Airlines that asks for a runway extension and a lifting of the current ban on jets at the airport.

City council is expected to vote on a formal staff recommendation at December’s meeting.

When Porter Airlines CEO Robert Deluce announced plans in April to fly the new CS100 jet from Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport, he noted that the emergency safety runoff area might be coming, and included it in his initial 168-metre extension at each end.

In September, Deluce put forward a second proposal calling for a 200-metre extension at each end, though he said Porter didn’t favour one length over another.

Fiona Chapman, director of the city’s Waterfront Project division, which is overseeing the review, said city staffers hope to get necessary information and data in time to make a recommendation to city council.

“If we get an approval by the end of 2013, that will allow us enough time to put in the changes and improvements we need to receive those first aircraft scheduled for early 2016,” Deluce told reporters after McQueen’s speech.

Both Bombardier and Transport Canada have promised to deliver key noise data by month’s end, but Chapman said it is unclear whether it will be enough information.

“This is a very odd set of circumstances, where a tenant drives the process, and all of the unknowns remain, and you’re asking the city to weigh in,” said Chapman, who attended the luncheon.

“We find this very challenging that the port authority has not played their hand, if you like,” she said, though it is footing the bill for studies, which is edging close to $1 million.

McQueen reiterated on Monday that the port authority, which operates the airport, will take no position on Porter’s expansion plan until after city council rules, arguing elected officials should decide first.

“If they aren’t in favour of that change then we don’t need to have a position,” McQueen told reporters afterward, adding if council agrees to expansion then the port authority will look to see if there’s a business case with a “do no harm” goal.

Passengers would be on the hook for costs associated with airport’s expansion, and McQueen added Porter wouldn’t bear the expenses “for the same reason that trucking companies don’t pay for an off-ramp to their storage facilities up on the 401. The airport operator has to pay for capex (capital expenditure), same as the (pedestrian) tunnel,” which is being financed privately, he said.

During his speech, McQueen took a shot at airport opponents, saying dire warning of plummeting property waterfront values haven’t materialized, with values jumping 60 to 70 per cent in a decade.

“Ten years ago, before Porter was launching, a whole bunch of claims and doomsday scenarios were put out there, and they turned out not to be true,” he said.

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NoJetsTo chair Anshul Kapoor said his citizens’ group opposes island airport expansion, and is worried it will have a detrimental effect on Toronto’s waterfront.

“They’re hiding behind a veil of not taking a position,” Kapoor said. “But they will take a stab at any opposition out there, whether it’s Community Air, whether it’s NoJetTo.

“If you’re taking stabs at opposition, you’re clearly taking a position, and your position is clearly aligned with Porter’s plans.”