Volunteers communicating the need for Pickering Airport
By Mark Brooks On June 7, 2021, the City of Pickering’s Planning and Development Committee discussed a staff report responding to the Region’s request for comments on various regional policies (Agenda Item 5.2). One of those policies related to the Pickering airport. I was pleased to be one of four people who made deputations to […]
By Ted Nickerson To say that commercial aviation has been devastated globally by the COVID19 pandemic would simply be stating the obvious. Millions of jobs and many billions of dollars have been lost. Some airlines may never recover. Now in June 2021, there is light. What is the long-term effect of COVID on global mobility? […]
By Ted Nickerson and Mark Brooks There’s an old joke about requiring politicians to wear a NASCAR like uniforms that tell us who their sponsors are. In Canada we like to think we are above such nonsense thanks to a ban on corporate donations. But this is no defense against special interest groups, political action […]
By Mark Brooks Canada’s largest trading partner, the United States of America, is shifting gears, and is set to come roaring out of the pandemic. Every adult in the US (that wants one) will have a vaccine by May 1st, and the CDC has given the OK for the fully vaccinated to travel without the […]
By Ted Nickerson Released in October 2020 by Land Over Landings (LOL), a document titled Research Paper 11 focuses on rebutting comments by local politicians regarding the potential for greenhouses and vertical farming on the federal Pickering Airport Lands. The comments by local elected officials were made in the context of including agriculture as part […]
It is time for a zombie hunt. A dead science hypothesis from 1999 — that contrails multiply carbon emission — lives on. This living dead story is haunting newspaper articles and social media sites with a strange idea that a contrail caused by a jet flying above 25,000 feet has three times the effect on […]
“Extinction Rebellion” activists warn that we must stop all flying or we will be the last generation. They warn that aviation is standing in the way of meeting the “well below” 2C° temperature rise agreed to in the Paris accords. Stunning claims that aviation will produce a quarter of all emissions by 2050 is repeated […]
By Mark Brooks In October, 2020, the Member of Parliament for Pickering-Uxbridge, Jennifer O’Connell, sponsored an E-Petition in the House of Commons calling on the federal government to cancel a new airport being planned in North Pickering. It called for the existing leases on a billion-dollar government land parcel to be extended for decades to […]
The Greater Toronto Area (GTA) has a transportation dilemma. The GTA is the beating heart of Canada’s economy, but while its population and economy are growing at break-neck speed, its transportation facilities are becoming a bottleneck, which can be a safety hazard. Canada relies on aviation to connect the economy to the world and to […]
By Mark Brooks and Ted Nickerson On November 18, 2020, the Urban Land Institute (ULI) held a virtual event called “Transform Pickering: Big Moves in the GTA’s Frontier City”. Moderated by Emma Ward (Bousfield Inc), the session provided a forum for Dave Ryan, Mayor City of Pickering, assisted by Paula Bustard, Fiaz Jadoon, and Johan Van’t Hof, to present key strategic projects and the long-term vision that will fundamentally transform the City of Pickering. The City’s vision […]
