Pearson Accountability Alliance

The Externalized Costs of Pearson Airport: A Public Record

1. What “Externalized Costs” Means at Pearson

Most airports carry the operational costs of noise mitigation, sleep protection, and public health. At Pearson, these costs are shifted onto residents, workers, municipal health systems, school performance, and the broader public.

This is not randomness. It is the product of operational design, policy choices, regulatory inaction, outdated legal frameworks, and a financial model that rewards traffic growth without accounting for harm.

Noise is not the cost — sleep loss is.
Sleep loss is not the cost — chronic stress is.
Chronic stress is not the cost — cardiovascular disease and fatigue-related accidents are.

2. Evidence Structure — Exhibits A to E

The analysis on this page is supported by a linked set of Exhibits:

• Exhibit A — Night Flight Budget (Master Explanation)
• Exhibit B — 2025 Night Operations vs. Published Budget
• Exhibit C — Acacia Park Noise Monitor — Night Noise Event Evidence (2025)
• Exhibit D — ATIS Night Runway Use (forthcoming)
• Exhibit E — WHO Night Noise Evidence

3. The Noise Burden: What the Evidence Shows

The Acacia Park Noise Monitor (Exhibit C) provides the clearest record to date. Findings include near-continuous noise intrusions, peaks exceeding 70–95 dB, exceedances on 335 out of 365 nights, and patterns that fragment sleep across the entire 23:00–07:00 window.

4. The Night-Flight Budget — A System Designed to Expand

Pearson claims to operate under a “night-flight restriction program.” In reality, it is an expansion-driven quota system where the budget grows automatically with traffic, borrowing is allowed, and entire categories of flights are exempt. The structure guarantees growth, not protection.

5. Published Numbers vs. Real-World Night Operations

Pearson publicly reports compliance, but internally excludes vast categories of flights. The “public number” is only a fraction of actual nighttime activity, giving decision-makers and residents a systematically incomplete picture of the real noise burden.

6. Operational Choices That Concentrate Harm

Nighttime operations follow a narrow set of runway configurations (for example, 23 and 24R) that direct arrivals and departures over the same neighbourhoods, night after night. These are not unavoidable acts of nature; they are operational choices that concentrate harm on specific communities.

7. What Nighttime Noise Does to the Body

Harm comes from the physiological reaction: hormonal stress surges, micro-awakenings, elevated heart rate, and long-term cardiovascular strain. Even when people think they are “sleeping through” the noise, their nervous system is being repeatedly activated.

8. Sleep Fragmentation: The Core Injury

Healthy sleep requires 90–110 minute cycles to complete. Pearson’s noise breaks these into fragments of 2–5 minutes. This pattern is clinically indistinguishable from sleep fragmentation protocols used in research to induce cognitive slowing, metabolic disruption, and inflammatory elevation.

9. WHO, EEA, and Scientific Consensus

WHO evidence establishes 40 dB as the onset of physiological activation and 55 dB as significant cardiovascular risk. European Environment Agency (EEA) and other bodies reach similar conclusions. Pearson’s night operations routinely exceed these limits for large populations.

10. Safety Consequences of Chronic Nighttime Noise

Fatigue impairs attention, reaction time, and judgment. Pearson’s nighttime noise creates the exact physiological conditions Transport Canada warns against in transportation safety guidance — but in the surrounding workforce, not just in the cockpit.

11. This Is a Public-Health Burden

The chain is clear: Noise → Sleep Loss → Stress Activation → Disease Risk → Safety Impact. Regulators and health authorities have been notified repeatedly, yet refuse to treat this as a public-health emergency.

12. The Legal Architecture of Responsibility

Pearson is federal land overseen by Transport Canada, Health Canada, ECCC, and others. Multiple statutes apply, including environmental, health, and safety laws. These frameworks exist on paper but are not being meaningfully applied.

13. GTAA Lease Obligations They Are Failing

The Ground Lease requires compliance with applicable environmental laws and a Noise Management Program. The Noise Exposure Forecast (NEF) has not been updated in over 25 years. An obsolete contour is being used as a shield to justify growth while ignoring modern evidence.

14. Transport Canada’s Role

As landlord and regulator, Transport Canada has received detailed evidence of lease breaches, externalized health impacts, and outdated noise metrics. It has chosen not to intervene, effectively permitting the GTAA to operate without modern health-based limits.

15. Health Canada’s Abandonment

Health Canada has acknowledged the science on environmental noise in other contexts, but has disclaimed jurisdiction over airport noise and refused to apply its environmental health mandate to Pearson. The result is a federal health authority that recognizes the risk yet declines to act where it matters most.

16. ECCC — Federal Environmental Law

Environment and Climate Change Canada has not conducted a meaningful federal investigation into chemical residues or environmental impacts on Pearson’s federal lands and surrounding communities. The environmental dimension of aviation operations remains largely unexamined.

17. MECP / OECP — Provincial Oversight

Ontario’s Ministry of the Environment, Conservation & Parks (MECP) has repeatedly stated that airport impacts are a “federal matter,” declining to investigate environmental harms affecting Ontario residents. This leaves a regulatory vacuum at the exact point where provincial health systems bear the costs.

18. NAV CANADA’s Role

NAV CANADA controls the airspace and runway choices that determine who is harmed and when. They have been fully informed of the concentration of night paths and the resulting sleep disruption, yet continue to operate as though these are purely technical choices with no health implications.

19. Institutional Knowledge Timeline — They Knew

Residents have notified every institution. The record shows that Transport Canada, Health Canada, the GTAA, NAV CANADA, and other authorities received detailed evidence over multiple years but responded with minimization, deflection, or silence. This is not ignorance; it is informed inaction.

20. The Revolving Door of Ministers (2020–2025)

One major barrier to accountability has been the constant turnover of federal Ministers. Just as community groups educate one Minister on the file, they are replaced. This “revolving door” allows the government to perpetually delay action while claiming to be “getting up to speed.”

Most of the previous Ministers listed below did not reply to residents even once. The current Ministers are largely hiding behind their desks, ignoring repeated requests for meetings and enforcement.

21. Foreseeability — The Legal Core

In Canadian tort law, harm is foreseeable when institutions know it is occurring and continue the conduct anyway. Every institution around Pearson meets this criterion. They were informed, they understood the risks, and they chose to allow the conditions to persist.

22. Political Response — Who Helped, Who Stalled

A. Representatives Who Helped

Trustees Ida Li Preti (TCDSB) and Matias de Dovitiis (TDSB) were responsive and engaged, recognizing the impact on children’s sleep and learning. They treated noise and sleep as educational and health issues, not mere inconveniences.

B. Representatives Who Acted Only After Pressure

Councillor Anthony Perruzza minimized concerns initially. Only after a heated argument did he say, “If you want me to present a motion, you write it — but it’s going to spin.” Residents wrote it, and it passed unanimously.

C. Representatives Who Refused or Avoided Responsibility

MPP Tom Rakocevic raised a motion after significant pressure (“fighting and fighting”) but failed to build the consensus needed to pass it.

At the federal level, MP Judy Sgro has claimed in emails that she seeks “balanced solutions.” Yet, in a public meeting on September 4, 2025, she admitted she “does not see a solution” and views operational changes as “impractical.” This contradiction is not just disappointing; it is an ethical failure to call this “balance” when one side profits and the other pays with their physical health.

Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow has been sent hundreds of detailed emails from impacted residents. She has never replied. Despite leading the city most affected by Pearson’s operations, her office has maintained a complete silence.

23. Workers, Unions, Employers

Nighttime noise follows workers into hospitals, transit, logistics, and industry. Fatigue is a safety risk that increases accidents, errors, sick days, and disability claims. None of these costs appear on the GTAA’s balance sheet.

24. The Union Dimension

Canada’s labour movement (Teamsters, CUPE, Unifor, and others) has a mandate to protect workers from fatigue and environmental exposure. To be fair, many of these unions have never been contacted or provided with this data. They cannot act on what they do not know.

They are largely unaware that their members’ fatigue is being driven by the night-flight operations authorized by the federal government. This toolkit is the first step in bridging that gap.

25. Employers and Insurers

Employers and insurers absorb the downstream costs of chronic sleep deprivation and cardiovascular disease: increased claims, reduced productivity, burnout, and long-term disability. These costs do not fall on the GTAA or federal aviation policy — they are externalized onto workplaces and benefit plans.

26. Remedies

Tools exist. They are simply not being used:

• Enforce the Ground Lease and its environmental clauses;
• Update the NEF with modern data and health-based thresholds;
• Redesign the night-flight program with a hard cap and clear curfew;
• Conduct proper health risk assessments for communities under the flight paths.

27. The Bureaucratic Cycle: Deflect, Deny, Delay

Residents seeking help are often met with a standard strategy known as the “3 D’s”: Deflect, Deny, and Delay. The responses received are not just disappointing; they represent a systemic failure of public service.

• Ontario Minister of Health (Sylvia Jones): Residents have received zero response to concerns about the health impacts on Ontario citizens.
• Toronto Public Health: Residents were explicitly told, “We will read your emails, but we are not going to respond.” This acknowledges the data exists but refuses to engage with it.
• MECP (Ministry of the Environment): Issued a statement saying, “This is the final response,” and directed residents back to the federal government, despite clear environmental impacts on provincial land and water.
• Ombudsman: A case has now been opened to investigate this pattern of administrative failure.

28. Conclusion — A System Designed to Shift Burden

Pearson’s externalized costs are the predictable result of regulators refusing to regulate. The evidence is overwhelming: they knew. Residents warned them, repeatedly and in detail. This is not a local inconvenience; it is a national failure that must be corrected.

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Where to Direct This Evidence