A Bumpy Landing: Airports and the Making of Jet Age Canada by Bret Joel Edwards A Thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of History University of Toronto © Copyright by Bret Joel Edwards 2017 Abstract A Bumpy Landing: Airports and the Making of Jet Age Canada Bret Joel Edwards Doctor of Philosophy Department of History University of Toronto 2017 This dissertation examines changes at and around Canada’s major airports in the early jet age. It traces how airports in major Canadian cities evolved into mass transport hubs between the 1950s and 1980s and also materialized as complex technical systems that connected aviation to wider contemporary issues. During this period these airports assumed a dual role, operating in the background to help move people and planes and emerging at key times to occupy public consciousness. Historical changes there can thus help explain how airports grew increasingly visible as fixed, but active, modern infrastructure that both facilitated jet age mobility and were deeply embedded in the postwar order. This dissertation links the transformation of major airports to the rise of mass air travel, postwar change, and federal stewardship. Aviation’s rapid growth and technological advances beginning in the 1950s invariably transformed how these airports looked, worked, and were experienced by different groups of people. Various central developments in postwar Canada beyond aviation also migrated to these airports and made them more visible as public infrastructure that were both imagined in the national ii sphere and part of globalization. Moreover, airports were federally operated until the early 1990s and thus a state infrastructure project. The federal government and its partners used a combination of anticipatory and reactive strategies to manage airports that emphasized national interests, but also cared about cities and capital. This approach blended multiple scales and dynamics and constantly shifted as conditions changed, generating problems and tensions along the way that shaped the particular trajectory of airport development between the 1950s and 1980s. Taken together, this dissertation strengthens and advances historical knowledge about airports and aviation in Canada. It also contributes to the history of technology and mobility and its relationship to social and cultural change. Lastly, it contributes to the political, social, and cultural history of postwar Canada by bringing air travel into the narrative. In so doing, it shows how airports helped to make jet age Canada, a process that encompassed the local, national, and global arena and stretched well into the late twentieth century. iii Acknowledgements I’ll just start by saying that I’m no aviation enthusiast. In fact, I’m not fond of flying, so airports aren’t exactly my favourite place either. But that hasn’t stopped me from spending more time than I ever thought possible thinking and writing about them. Go figure. I could never, ever have written this dissertation without many different forms of generous support. Financially, I owe an enormous thanks to the Jeanne Armour fund and am also appreciative of support from the University of Toronto graduate fellowship, University College Canadian Studies fellowship, and Dictionary of Canadian Biography public history fellowship, the latter of which has provided some timely late funding. Meanwhile, librarians and archivists at Library and Archives Canada, the City of Vancouver Archives, the City of Richmond Archives, and the City of Toronto Archives were extremely helpful and pointed me in fruitful directions. I also can’t forget the Canadian Association of Air Traffic Controllers, which generously opened its private archives in Ottawa to me. I’m very fortunate it did. I owe intellectual debts to many people as well. Early in graduate school, seminars with Elspeth Brown and Paul Rutherford piqued my interest in space and place and in cultural theory, themes that pop up in this dissertation. Once I began writing, Caleb Wellum and Sarah Tracy read several of my chapters and gave thoughtful feedback that kept the wheels turning. Now at the end, I want to thank Tim Sayle and Rebecca Woods for coming on board as internal reviewers, and Dimitry Anastakis for agreeing to serve as my external reviewer. Along the way, I have been very lucky to have Michelle Murphy and Sean Mills on my committee. Each has offered so much to this project by challenging me to sharpen my analysis and consider the stakes of my topic from multiple angles. Finally, Steve Penfold has been a pretty awesome supervisor. He has not forgotten that grad school can sometimes be hard, and has made time to listen to and deal with my many questions, issues, and concerns even when he probably didn’t want to. He has never hesitated to tell me what he really thinks (even though, as he would add, it’s my dissertation and I can do what I want). And he has believed in me and in this project from day one, reminding me of that when I most needed to hear it. For all that and more, thanks Steve. iv My friends, meanwhile, have helped me get out of my head and away from my dissertation, something that is critical for surviving graduate school. I’ve met many wonderful people at the University of Toronto while completing this degree who have enriched my life. I clicked with Jared Toney and Peter Mersereau almost immediately, and they are responsible for some of my fondest memories of the last few years. Beth Jewett always made time to have tea and chat about all things life and became a great friend in the process. Meaghan Marian, too, has been there at some important times and is one of the strongest people I know. I also want to thank Dale Barbour, Seth Bernstein, Brandon Corcoran, Rachel Freedman-Stapleton, Jodi Giesbrecht, Nadia Jones-Gailani, Brandon King, Ryan Masters, Jonathan McQuarrie, Julia Rady-Shaw, Lindsay Sidders, Lilia Topouzova, and Mike Wilcox, with whom I have shared many laughs, and the odd karaoke song or three, on more than a few occasions. Anand Bhatt, Doug Jones, Steve Joza, and Jeff Weingarten were there before graduate school and I always enjoy catching up with them. And Jesse Morimoto has been and will continue to be my lifelong pal. It’s not a stretch to say that things could have turned out differently if not for some other special people. Sylvia Gaspari has witnessed the latter stages of this project. She has patiently endured my long work hours, especially towards the end, but has also reminded me to switch off now and then, offering me in the process the kind of love, affection, and emotional support that only she can. She makes me smile each and every day, and I’m incredibly grateful for how much she has lightened my life. Marjorie Predovich, my Baba, has been the rock of my family and a constant source of comfort over the years. And my sister, Jaymi, too, deserves thanks for often asking why I’m still in school, and thus motivating me to finish sooner than later. Finally, I dedicate this dissertation to my parents, Mary Ann and Dave. I don’t know where I would be without them. I really don’t. They have been extraordinary role models whose endless love, generosity, and encouragement have shaped me in innumerable ways to this day. Through their words and deeds, they have inspired me to keep plowing ahead, a philosophy that is particularly helpful when writing a dissertation. I am who I am in no small part because of them, and never fail to draw strength from knowing that they are in my corner, no matter what. v Table of Contents Abstract……………………………………………………………………………………ii Acknowledgements……………………………………………………………………….iv List of Figures…………………………………………………………………………....vii Introduction………………………………………………………………………………..1 Chapter 1: “The problems which now exist…are self-inflicted”: Canada’s Airports, Megaproject Development, and Jet Age Planning to the 1970s……………….21 Chapter 2: Noisy Neighbours: Airports and Communities in the 1960s and 1970s………………………………………………………………………………..........79 Chapter 3: “We’re cracking up down here”: The Airport Workplace, Labour Alienation, and Language Politics in the 1970s………………………………..129 Chapter 4: In But Not Of Canada: Airports, Citizenship, and Border Security in the 1970s and 1980s………………………………………………………………………...185 Chapter 5: “There are areas that have to be covered that have not been covered”: Airport Security and Surveillance, Air Terrorism, and Risk Prevention in the 1970s and 1980s………………………………………………………………………...236 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………...288 Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………295 vi List of Figures Figure 1: Stairs to observation deck at Vancouver International Airport, 1959…………35 Figure 2: Imagining the future airport as congestion-free……………………………….46 Figure 3: Downtowner Motor Inn advertisement………………………………………..50 Figure 4: Male expertise and the jet age mega-airport…………………………………..62 Figure 5: Mirabel airport – and Montreal – firmly embedded within the global circuitry of jet travel……………………………………………………………………..70 Figure 6: Mirabel airport Phase I access road…………………………………………...75 Figure 7: Vancouver International Airport, the proposed parallel runway, and surrounding environs, including Richmond………………………………………...94 Figure 8: Acoustical Engineering employee measures aircraft noise on top of mobile “Noise Measurement Vehicle” near Vancouver International Airport………………….97 Figure 9: Newspaper anti-noise cartoon……………………………………………….110 Figure 10: John and Alice Tiles at their Richmond home as an airplane passes Overhead……………………………………………………………………………….111 vii Introduction In the mid-1980s, Toronto-Pearson International Airport’s Operations Control Centre, located in the basement of Terminal One, was abuzz with activity.1 Surrounded by phones, radios, and television screens, the Centre’s staff of 24 people received around 200 calls a day. By this time Pearson had become the country’s primary air hub, handling almost 15 million passengers annually, and staff were aware that any situation that reached their office had to be dealt with swiftly to keep the airport running smoothly.