Harper curses Oshawa with a port authority

A federal scam to take over a waterfront and pass out graft to Tory insiders

By Brian Iler –

NEWS ITEM: Harper gov’t designates a port authority for Oshawa

Port Authorities are supposed to be for ports of that are “of strategic significance to Canada’s trade”, according to the Canada Marine Act.

Toronto’s never met that test – in 2009, it ranked 14th, after Trois-Rivieres, handling just 0.5% of Canada’s shipping[i].

Oshawa’s shipping volume is so low, it isn’t reported by Transport Canada.

What our experience in Toronto shows is that the Port Authority structure works only for the federal government, allowing it to assume virtually total control of a city’s waterfront, make patronage appointments to the board of directors, ignore the city’s bylaws and planning processes, and get away with failing to pay its fair share of property taxes for years.

The Harbour Commission structure, which the Harper government has now done away with for Oshawa, gave local communities substantial control over their waterfronts. Toronto lost its Harbour Commission in 1999, when the Toronto Port Authority was unilaterally imposed by the Chretien government.

The Port Authority’s been a bad deal for Toronto. Certainly a terrible idea for Oshawa.

Brian Iler is chairman of CommunityAIR, a group that opposes the Island airport and federal control of Toronto’s waterfront