When Ottawa withheld its support for the Billy Bishop airport expansion, Ontario had yet to follow through on the plan it announced in March to designate the airport as the province’s first special economic zone.

The Ford government has since said it remains committed to modernizing the airport, but did not say if a special economic zone designation is part of that.

The last update dates back to late May, when Transportation Minister Prabmeet Sarkaria said the designation would happen “soon.” Asked whether Ontario still plans to make the airport a special economic zone on Tuesday, a spokesperson for Sarkaria did not directly answer, instead touting the project’s benefits.

The province’s controversial regulatory fast-tracking power is set to remain untested for the time being.

Passed as part of a broader deregulatory push in Bill 5, the special economic zones legislation was long expected to debut in the Ring of Fire, given the Ford government’s focus on accelerating mining in that northwest region.

Premier Doug Ford appeared to reverse course earlier this year, saying the powers weren’t needed in the Ring of Fire because the province has “great partners” there — a reference to the two First Nations carrying out assessment work on the roads needed to reach the region’s critical minerals.

READ MORE: Ring of Fire mine prioritizing First Nation partners over regulatory fast track

A few weeks later, Ford announced the province would take over the City of Toronto’s stake in the airport and designate it a special economic zone in a bid to allow jets to take off and land there, dismissing the “lefties” on city council as “closed-minded.”

Under powers it obtained last year, the Ontario cabinet has the authority to designate zones where proponents or projects can be exempted from a wide range of legal and regulatory requirements. The designation process rests on a minister’s opinion that the move would advance the project, deliver long-term financial and community benefits, and have a strong chance of success.

Aashish Oberoi, an associate at OKT Law, told iPolitics the Billy Bishop episode reveals little about how the province might use special economic zones elsewhere in the province. 

“It’s an expansion of an airport that already exists, not what you’d be looking at in northern Ontario if you designated a large area for mining and started removing a number of regulations,” he said. 

Oberoi points to the feedback that poured in during federal consultations on Billy Bishop as evidence that rushing projects breeds fear and uncertainty among those most directly affected and gives them a reason to organize.

He warns First Nations are “likely to react in similar ways” if the Ford government moves to designate special economic zones in their territories. 

Suspending rules, he says, could eliminate the very processes through which impacts on Section 35 constitutional rights are identified and accommodated.

“I don’t know if the feds would take the exact same steps if the same concerns were raised in the north… I am hopeful that they would listen to a northern community the same way they do to Toronto with byelections going on,” he said. “But the realistic version is, in a lot of these places there is a singular seat, not five by the waterfront.”