News - Stephenville International Airport

Recently, Dave Kane publicly expressed his opinion that the local MHAs do not support the Stephenville airport. He is dead wrong.

The provincial government has active representative on the Stephenville Airport Corporation Board. Our current representation is Shawn Tilley and prior to Mr. Tilley, our representative was Bob Byrnes.

At a minimum, we communicate with our representative on a weekly basis.

Since 2006, as a government, we have also provided significant levels of support to the Stephenville Airport Corporation with respect to restructuring operations, developing a marketing and business plan, and evaluating business development options. Additionally, the airport has a $350,000 credit line guaranteed by the provincial government. Without this ongoing line of credit, financial obligations would not have been met.

There has been criticism that as local MHAs, we publicly denounce the decision of the Stephen Harper government to grant “point of entry” status to Deer Lake. We have no intention of engaging in the counter-productive activity of pitting communities against each other, however, we were disappointed with the decision.

We feel the airport is a great asset to the people of southwestern Newfoundland. We have always supported this facility and as long as we represent St. George’s-Stephenville East and Port au Port, we will do what we can to work co-operatively with the Stephenville Airport Corporation Board.

Joan Burke, MHA St. George’s-Stephenville East, minister of child, youth and family services; Tony Cornect, MHA Port au Port