Montreal, November 29, 2018. Mr. Pierre Lachapelle, president of the citizen group Les Pollués de Montréal-Trudeau (LPDMT), presented a brief today to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities.
On behalf of the thousands of citizens inconvenienced and harmed by the airplanes that fly over Montreal, Mr. Lachapelle presented six requests and a suggestion to the federal deputees. These were:
1- A complete ban of night time flights, from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m., at the Montréal-Trudeau Airport.
2- An immediate freeze and end to the 4.5 Billion$ terminal project, announced April 30th 2018.
3- An economic, environmental, social, and health evaluation of the current situation and of the impact of the project announced April 30th.
4- A public evaluation of the expansion by an independent and scientifically competent group, which would include public hearings on the airport situation.
5- Since it began to rent the airport, the management of noise and pollution by Aéroports de Montréal (ADM) has been inadequate. The citizen group asks that the responsability for the assessment of its environmental impacts be transferred to an independant and transparent organization that makes its findings public.
6- That Parliament takes back control and monitoring of the international airports, a role that was relinquised in 1992 when this was outsourced to other organizations.
Finally, it was suggested that the committee takes into consideration the analysis of Canada’s international airports by Michel Nadeau and Jacques Roy of IGOPP.
Mr. Lachapelle concluded his presentation by indicating that the work of the committee will be judged in terms of the concrete improvements that will be carried out in the short and medium term.