Ontario Liberal leadership hopeful Bains awaits Billy Bishop airport consultations before weighing in

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

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

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’s Progressive Conservatives in 2018 and now sits in third place in the legislature.

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.

Ex-MP Navdeep Bains enters Ontario Liberal leadership race

Mr. Bains said in an interview that he’s been hearing about frustrations with the Progressive Conservative government after eight years in power at Queen’s Park.

Mr. Bains described Mr. Ford as “out of touch” with regular people, citing the government’s scuttled purchase of a private jet this past spring.

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’s 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’s waterfront.

Currently, commercial carriers at the island airport are limited to smaller turboprop planes.

Any expansion must still be approved by Ottawa, and the Ontario NDP has urged Prime Minister Mark Carney to scrap it.

Earlier this month, the federal government launched online consultations to gather feedback about the expansion. Mr. Carney, who initially called Mr. Ford’s proposal an “interesting vision,” 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.

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.

Billy Bishop Airport expansion could cost $4-billion to $5-billion, port authority CEO says

“I don’t want to prejudge the outcome, so I think it would be prudent upon me to say if there’s a consultation process, see how it plays out,” Mr. Bains said.

He added that the focus on the airport “speaks to the lack of trust” in Mr. Ford and his government.

“People feel let down on issues that the government is responsible for,” he said, referencing high unemployment rates, small businesses, rent prices and tuition fees, including cuts to Ontario Student Assistance Program grants.

Mr. Bains, who was in Mr. Trudeau’s 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.

His close association with the former prime minister has prompted PC MPPs to brand him “Trudeau 2.0.”

But Mr. Bains brushes off such criticisms.

“First of all, I’m running as Navdeep Bains,” said the 49-year-old married father of two daughters, adding that as a cabinet minister his focus was on industry and jobs.

“The Conservatives will be negative and I think they will attack whoever wins the leadership race,” he said. “People have had enough of that nonsense.”

He also said he knew Mr. Carney before the former central banker entered politics last year and they “keep in touch.”

Life under conservatives isn’t good enough, Navdeep Bains says, in pitch for Ontario Liberal leader

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.

“Racism exists today and always existed,” said Mr. Bains, who is Sikh and wears a turban.

But he said his experiences have been overwhelmingly positive and that’s what he focuses on. “You might meet the odd person who can be mean-spirited, but it’s the exception.”

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…