Volunteers communicating the need for Pickering Airport
By Mark Brooks Toronto’s Lester B. Pearson airport is the center of an advanced industrial zone that is at the forefront of the reindustrialization of Canada. The PEZ (Pearson Economic Zone) is now Canada’s second largest employment zone, employing 400,000 people and contributing $53 billion to Ontario’s economy. But why, even with land prices soaring, […]
A new airport in North Pickering just east of Toronto is now one of the centerpieces of the Durham Region’s draft official plan. While the plan must still be approved by the province, this is expected to be a nonissue. So, what are the next steps on the path to shovels in the ground on […]
by Ted Nickerson The pending decision by Pickering Council is not going to change the status of the Federal Pickering lands. The above statement is not meant to diminish the importance of the pending decision, nor to be critical of the motion’s proponents. It just means that the motion, if successful, will not achieve what […]
By Ted Nickerson Building on my first “Philosophically Speaking” posting, I think the topic of the business case for the current and future use of the Federal Pickering lands deserves comment. I offer several perspectives on this. Is there a business case for farming, or for an airport? Where are they? What does the North […]
By Ted Nickerson This is the first of three-part series on the deeper meaning of the fight over the development of Pickering airport. The events of the last few weeks, (the City of Pickering motion to rescind support for an airport / the Region’s Draft Official Plan Statutory Public meeting) got me wondering about the […]
It has become fashionable for “Headline Environmentalists” to believe that climate change can be fought with political decrees opposing growth. In Pickering, two new councilors’ put forward just such a motion, in this case opposing a new airport on federal land, using misleading information from a lobby group. Luckily for us and them, the majority […]
By Ted Nickerson, March 10, 2023 This will be my last update from an aviation recovery perspective. In my first posting on this topic in March 2022, I identified that IATA (1) predicted that North American commercial aviation would reach 94% of the 2019 passenger traffic volume by year-end 2022 and reach 102% by year-end […]
By Mark Brooks It is late Monday night, and I am in the city of Pickering council chambers about to speak at a council meeting. In among the usual city issues is buried a radical proposition added into the agenda at the last moment the previous Thursday. It is replete with misinformation on aviation from […]
By Ted Nickerson February 26, 2023 Way back in July 2020, as the country was shutting down and the aviation industry was sinking to lows not seen in 70 years due to COVID19, I posted a positive message that Canadian airports will be carbon neutral in the future and commended the Airports Council International – […]
The history of the land set aside for Pickering Airport is a fascinating window into the development of Canada and the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). It is often presented as a dark tale of the politicization of infrastructure development, regional rivalry, and misinformation. It has been referred to as “the other Mirabel” for political and […]
