I watched some of the City Council debate on the airport/bridge, and it passed because the non-city core Aldermen supported and voted for the Pro Airport side and outnumbered the city Aldermen who for the most part opposed it. So hold a referendum, and it would likley be overwhelmingly in favour of the airport, not against it. The major opponents are the vociferous residents who inhabit those horrendous condos, and of course the Island residents.
As for lies and misstatements of the Anti Airport people, aside from accidents, claimed that airports attract warehouses and so the area would be turned from residential to commercial! As for noise from additional flights, a TTC bus makes more noise and has a higher decibel level than a DASH8/400. And there are already more buses along Lakeshore Blvd than there will ever be hourly flights.
While I do think building that wall of condos was a mistake, it is done and just needs to be more humanized. Tearing them down to build a park is a nice idea, but we already have more parkland 15-minutes away by ferry than comprise Central Park in NYC. Chicago needed to clear its waterfront to create a park since it did not have an island as we do. Toronto needed tens of thousands of people living in the city core, and it now has that, with more to come.