TOM URBANIAK:
Where are the benefits of this top-down airport scheme — even for Inverness County?
Tom Urbaniak
The Cape Breton Post
Published: Jul 04 at 10:48 a.m.
Tom Urbaniak, associate professor of political science at Cape Breton University. - SaltWire Network
Don’t fund it
The federal and provincial governments should not subsidize a new airport in Inverness County. It’s a project with many negative side effects and no clearly established public benefit. It was hatched with no serious public consultation, not even with local leaders.
The federal subsidy would likely be at least $18 million. The province would also contribute funds. Premier Stephen McNeil has noted that the federal government asked Nova Scotia to include the airport on an infrastructure priority list.
Local politicians, for their part, seem to be only vaguely aware of any details. Yet again, we are witnessing a top-down, trickle-down, elite-oriented model of economic development — a model that has already failed Cape Bretoners.
“It will serve enclaves of luxury.” — Tom Urbaniak, Political Insights
Proponents of an airport in Inverness County, catering to very affluent golfers who want to be in and out of Cape Breton quickly, call their scheme the “Cape Breton Island Airport.”
It won’t serve the island or even much of the surrounding community. It will serve enclaves of luxury. It will keep more spending contained to the golf owners and other high-end businesses.
It’s a vision that is vaguely reminiscent of high-security, gilded tropical resorts, walled off from the much poorer surrounding regions. Those resorts often skew and weigh down local economies. The crumbs do not fall far from the table.
Proponents of the airport project have set up a website with testimonials. Many commentators refer to Cabot Links, but no evidence is actually offered to show any net positive impact that would result from adding a publicly subsidized adjacent airport.
How many more visitors would come to Cabot Links if they could fly directly to it, rather than drive an hour from Port Hawkesbury? How might any benefit be off-set by shorter stays and less spending along route?
The website claims that, in the first five years, there will be “626.3 direct and spin-off jobs.” It’s a very precise number, but no source is provided.
Cape Breton-Canso MP Rodger Cuzner insists that a new airport would actually make the golf and resort destinations more accessible to those who can’t afford a private or charter plane. That’s because the the new airport would accept commercial flights.
But why can’t the existing Port Hawkesbury Airport be outfitted to do likewise?
I am concerned about the negative impacts on Inverness County, which I want to see prosper. Airports are an extremely disruptive piece of infrastructure. They’re worth the disruption if they can sustainably serve multiple economic functions and diverse clienteles in a region, but not if they’re intended to prop up resorts.
Airports usually require expropriations of private property. They have a detrimental effect on property values of nearby homes and sometimes businesses. They neutralize swaths of their surrounding territory.
Although this anticipated airport would be seasonal, it would put dozens of square kilometres under a new cone of regulation.
“Time for Western Cape Breton to get an airport that can handle big planes,” remarked businessman John Bitove in his testimonial. What he doesn’t say is that big planes mean big restricted zones.
Many land development proposals would have to pass through federal scrutiny to ensure that land uses, heights, reflections, glares and other obstacles do not interfere with airport operations. Elsewhere in Canada, federal interveners have sometimes opposed new residential subdivisions, out of concern that future residents would complain about noise or try to block future airport expansion plans.
Meanwhile, Mayor Brenda Chisholm-Beaton of Port Hawkesbury is concerned about the impact on her town, but not only her town. “The bigger picture is that Inverness has a roads, water and housing challenge.”
It’s a good point. Why has this airport catapulted to the top of the funding priority list? What if the same amount of money was invested to ensure excellent health care or even to provide a satellite college or university campus in Inverness? After all, it would be open in winter.
This controversy is reminiscent of the storyline in "A Possible Madness," an excellent novel by Inverness’s own Frank Macdonald. The author captures how difficult it can be for concerned citizens to express skepticism about an improbable or wild development scheme. You might be shunned as an enemy of the community.
But as in the novel, the health of a town ultimately depends on sober analysis and thoughtful, constructive people.
I hope they prevail. I hope we learn from past mistakes.
Tom Urbaniak, PhD, is a professor of political science at Cape Breton University. He can be reached at tom_urbaniak@cbu.ca.