{"id":746459,"date":"2026-06-19T03:54:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-19T03:54:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/746459\/"},"modified":"2026-06-19T03:54:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-19T03:54:09","slug":"ontario-liberal-leadership-hopeful-bains-awaits-billy-bishop-airport-consultations-before-weighing-in","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/746459\/","title":{"rendered":"Ontario Liberal leadership hopeful Bains awaits Billy Bishop airport consultations before weighing in"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Mr. Bains, a former federal cabinet member, is widely viewed as the front-runner in the contest to lead the Ontario Liberals.GABRIEL HUTCHINSON<\/p>\n

Ontario Liberal Party leadership contender Navdeep Bains says he\u2019s awaiting the outcome of federal consultations about expanding Toronto\u2019s downtown Billy Bishop airport before weighing in on the idea, as he criticized the Ford government for ignoring more pressing issues in the province.<\/p>\n

Mr. Bains, who was industry minister in the government of then-prime-minister Justin Trudeau, is widely viewed as the front-runner in the contest to lead the Ontario Liberals. The party governed for 15 years until losing to Premier Doug Ford\u2019s Progressive Conservatives in 2018 and now sits in third place in the legislature.<\/p>\n

Mr. Bains, a former chief corporate affairs officer at Rogers Communications, is pitching himself to party members as a serious and thoughtful candidate who is ready to take on Mr. Ford in the next election. He said the issues he hears about most are economic anxiety, as well as improving health care and education, and public safety.<\/p>\n

Ex-MP Navdeep Bains enters Ontario Liberal leadership race<\/a><\/p>\n

Mr. Bains said in an interview that he\u2019s been hearing about frustrations with the Progressive Conservative government after eight years in power at Queen\u2019s Park.<\/p>\n

Mr. Bains described Mr. Ford as \u201cout of touch\u201d with regular people, citing the government\u2019s scuttled purchase of a private jet this past spring.<\/p>\n

Mr. Ford has also made a massive expansion of Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport to allow for commercial jet flights a top priority, passing legislation to take over the City of Toronto\u2019s stake in the facility to get around long-standing opposition to the idea from Mayor Olivia Chow. Critics have long warned jets would spoil the city\u2019s waterfront. <\/p>\n

Currently, commercial carriers at the island airport are limited to smaller turboprop planes. <\/p>\n

Any expansion must still be approved by Ottawa, and the Ontario NDP has urged Prime Minister Mark Carney to scrap it.<\/p>\n

Earlier this month, the federal government launched online consultations to gather feedback about the expansion. Mr. Carney, who initially called Mr. Ford\u2019s proposal an \u201cinteresting vision,\u201d recently said he has not yet formed an opinion about it. The Toronto Port Authority, the federal agency that runs the airport, is not releasing detailed expansion plans during the consultations. It has said it would not have a draft plan available for months.<\/p>\n

In the interview, Mr. Bains said he would await the results of the consultations, which run until July 24, before making any pronouncements on a possible expansion. The Trudeau government in 2015 quashed a previous push from Porter Airlines to allow jets at the airport.<\/p>\n

Billy Bishop Airport expansion could cost $4-billion to $5-billion, port authority CEO says<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want to prejudge the outcome, so I think it would be prudent upon me to say if there\u2019s a consultation process, see how it plays out,\u201d Mr. Bains said. <\/p>\n

He added that the focus on the airport \u201cspeaks to the lack of trust\u201d in Mr. Ford and his government.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople feel let down on issues that the government is responsible for,\u201d he said, referencing high unemployment rates, small businesses, rent prices and tuition fees, including cuts to Ontario Student Assistance Program grants.<\/p>\n

Mr. Bains, who was in Mr. Trudeau\u2019s cabinet for six years, is drawing on nearly two decades of political experience, as an MP and an organizer, with deep roots in the Greater Toronto Area, including in Mississauga and Brampton. <\/p>\n

His close association with the former prime minister has prompted PC MPPs to brand him \u201cTrudeau 2.0.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Mr. Bains brushes off such criticisms. <\/p>\n

\u201cFirst of all, I\u2019m running as Navdeep Bains,\u201d said the 49-year-old married father of two daughters, adding that as a cabinet minister his focus was on industry and jobs.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Conservatives will be negative and I think they will attack whoever wins the leadership race,\u201d he said. \u201cPeople have had enough of that nonsense.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also said he knew Mr. Carney before the former central banker entered politics last year and they \u201ckeep in touch.\u201d<\/p>\n

Life under conservatives isn\u2019t good enough, Navdeep Bains says, in pitch for Ontario Liberal leader<\/a><\/p>\n

A child of immigrant parents, his family moved to Brampton from Toronto during his school years. He was placed in an English as a second language class until his Grade 6 teacher pulled him out, noting he was born and raised in Canada.<\/p>\n

\u201cRacism exists today and always existed,\u201d said Mr. Bains, who is Sikh and wears a turban.<\/p>\n

But he said his experiences have been overwhelmingly positive and that\u2019s what he focuses on. \u201cYou might meet the odd person who can be mean-spirited, but it\u2019s the exception.\u201d<\/p>\n

There are five candidates so far vying for the leadership of the Ontario Liberals: Mr. Bains, first-term Liberal MPPs Lee Fairclough and Rob Cerjanec, former political staffer Dylan Marando and housing advocate Eric Lombardi. The new leader will be announced on Nov. 21.<\/p>\n

Toronto Liberal MP Nate Erskine-Smith, who is resigning his federal seat this summer, had hoped to jump into the leadership race. But he lost his nomination bid last month to run for the Liberals in a provincial by-election that has yet to be called in Scarborough Southwest, and hasn\u2019t yet proclaimed on his future. He told the Toronto Star he is considering a run for Toronto city council.<\/p>\n

Mr. Bains said he reached out to Mr. Erskine-Smith – who unsuccessfully appealed the nomination results – after the loss.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt a human level, I was just saying, you know, \u2018Make sure that you now spend some time with your family and yourself, and just reflect, because these are emotional moments,\u2019\u201d Mr. Bains said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: Mr. Bains, a former federal cabinet member, is widely viewed as the front-runner…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":746460,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[901,888,902,879,877,903,49,48,876,895,896,891,878,875,46,549,295,894,887,914,880,881,893,889,890,884,904,885,909,910,912,907,911,905,908,882,898,899,714,897,906,66,865,61,900,892,886,883,913],"class_list":["post-746459","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-alberta","tag-arts-news","tag-bc","tag-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news-video","tag-british-columbia","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canada-news","tag-canada-sports","tag-canada-sports-news","tag-canada-trafficcanada-weather","tag-canadian-breaking-news","tag-canadian-news","tag-economy","tag-education","tag-environment","tag-federal-government","tag-foreign-news","tag-globe-and-mail","tag-globe-and-mail-breaking-news","tag-globe-and-mail-canada-news","tag-government","tag-life-news","tag-lifestyle","tag-local-news","tag-manitoba","tag-national-news","tag-new-brunswick","tag-newfoundland-and-labrador","tag-northwest-territories","tag-nova-scotia","tag-nunavut","tag-ontario","tag-pei","tag-photos","tag-political-news","tag-political-opinion","tag-politics","tag-politics-news","tag-quebec","tag-science","tag-sports-news","tag-technology","tag-travel","tag-trudeau","tag-us-news","tag-world-news","tag-yukon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/746459","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=746459"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/746459\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/746460"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=746459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=746459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=746459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}