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, […]
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 […]
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 […]
This article is about why pilots today should never talk to an average reporter and what everyone can learn from aviation’s hard-won experience. Chatting with the media, while bolstering your ego with 15 seconds of fame, is not for the inexperienced individuals. More harm than good can be achieved by off the cuff interviews. As […]
“Toronto airport is a total Nightmare” reads the headline of a story highlighting the suffering of individual travelers. The media is full of hundreds of these human-interest stories over the Christmas of 2022, but this headline was from February 2019. Over the years, reporters looking for a quick “if it bleeds, it leads” story need […]
If you live in Pickering Ontario, you may have heard comments during the last municipal election that development of the Federal Pickering Airport lands will increases taxes, specifically residential property taxes. We have looked at this and have bombshell good news. Taxes across Durham region will be going down thanks to the new airport. Once […]
What defines good leadership? Some argue that it is about being able to have a vision and implement that vision effectively. Others believe it is about having the knowledge and strength to stand up for a future you want to see come true. These two aspects of leadership are not contradictory. One requires the other. […]
By Mark Brooks The debate around the development of Pickering Airport is often focused on the business case, the demographics of growth and the environment. What about the moral case? What opportunities are we forgoing, and what future problems are we creating for our children, if we fail to build a new airport in Pickering? Is it […]
