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For two people, the toll would then be about the same as a taxi-ride to Mirabel - one of the things that made that airport so unpopular that in 1997 ADM steered most of its business to Dorval. Montrealers would be back where they started - with a pain-in-the-wallet airport.

Nycol Pageau-Goyette, chairman of ADM, said at a press conference last week that the money would pay for $1.3 billion worth of improvements. She held out hope that if the federal government, owner of the airport, lowers the rent that it charges ADM for Dorval, no tax increase would be necessary. But only three years ago Pageau Goyette pronounced herself delighted with what she described as the ''best lease of its kind in Canada. '' Little wonder that Transport Canada so far has not encouraged optimism that it will renegotiate the lease.

At the press conference, Pageau-Goyette tried hard to make a $30 tax seem normal. London's airports hit passengers for about $50, she noted, while Sydney, Australia, charges $26 and Mexico City just under $20.

No Anti-Taxers

But a fairer comparison would be to airports closer to home. Ottawa's airport asks $10, Toronto's charges nothing and in the United States the maximum airport-user fee, which worms its way unseen into the ticket price, is just $3 U.S.

Quebec is already the most taxed place in North America. Yet, strangely, the anti-tax movement here is relatively quiet. ADM is evidently counting on more of what the public is so good at - sighing acquiescence.

The key question is: Is so much improvement at Dorval really necessary?

No one would question that a need exists for some new work. Serpentine queues in front of a few ticket counters, for example, leave little room for passers-by.

But with an improvement budget of $1.3 billion, of which $1.1 billion would be for Dorval and $200 million for Mirabel, ADM is truly thinking big. Its plan calls for enlarging the existing terminal and adding new jetties for U.S. and overseas flights in order to ''reduce aircraft transfer times, increase the number of destinations (and) increase flight frequencies.''

Still, it's worth asking whether Dorval is likely to attract all these connecting flights. The rosy projections for new business that ADM made prior to bringing most of Mirabel's flights to Dorval have so far proved inflated. And even if a bigger Dorval were to lure more connecting flights, one has to ask if they would be numerous enough to justify the huge infrastructure cost.

Quite aside from these functional improvements, the plan calls for more comfort and chic. At her press conference, Pageau-Goyette spoke of the need for ''new, world-class, user-friendly facilities which will reflect the specific character of Montreal.'' She said she wants ''the most welcoming facilities in the world.''

Do we need this?

How essential is this? For an informed opinion of how Dorval stacked up against other airports around the world, I asked my globetrotting colleague, travel editor Paul Waters. His verdict: ''Reasonably OK.''

If ADM wants to gussy up Dorval into a traveler's dream, fine, but many travelers might prefer to put up with today's quite acceptable situation and save money.

ADM does not have to be careful about how it spends your money because it is accountable to no one.

When Ottawa let local people take over the management of Montreal's airports in 1992, it went overboard. It set up ADM with a seven-member board of directors composed entirely of businesspeople. It included no representative of the federal government - unlike at ADM's counterparts at Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver's airports, which are also federally owned. Nor did Ottawa require a representative of the public. With ADM, the time- honoured principle of ''no taxation without representation,'' does not apply.

Back to that early question: Is it necessary to spend so much money on a Dorval face-lift? ADM doesn't really even have to answer the question. It can triple the tax with just a snap of its fingers.

Maybe Transport Canada should re-negotiate the lease. And insist that the public have a say on airport policy.