Who is Leasing the Pickering Airport Lands?

By Mark Brooks In response to a Freedom of Information request, we have received the list of leaseholders for the Pickering lands retained for economic development, including an airport. A big thank you and shout–out to Transport Canada for doing what they could on this politically–charged topic.  Although heavily redacted, the response provides enough information […]

Supporting Aviation Key to Canada’s Pandemic Recovery

  Written by Mark Brooks, Oct 5 2020. The Canadian economy is in recession, the planet is on fire, racial injustice has been laid bare and a global pandemic threatens to kill our most vulnerable citizens.  As 2020 turns into a dumpster fire of a year overburdened with multiple crisis, or are they related, and which […]

The New Aircraft of Pickering Airport: A Quest for Efficiency  

Mark Brooks, Sept 17, 2020 In 2029, Pickering Airport will be open. What type of aircraft will call it home? To answer that question, we need to understand two of the forces driving the need for the new airport. One is the economic freedom behind the success of the municipalities in the Greater Toronto Area, the immigration it attracts and […]

Misinformation to Stall Airport

by Mark Brooks A citizen, worried that the pandemic is being used as cover to reward insiders, writes a letter to his Liberal MP.  The reply he received was laced with misinformation and should worry every Canadian. It highlights the lack of leadership and wishful thinking now delaying the development of new infrastructure in Canada.  In […]

Toronto’s Pandemic Recovery Will Require New Airport Infrastructure

By Mark Brooks Passenger aviation is now in the early stages of restarting from its COVID-19-induced shutdown. As the pandemic continues to turn the world upside down, airports and airlines are grappling with the new normal. How can they safely provide critical transportation services, moving both people and goods, to keep the economy going? How […]

Canadian Airports Will Be Carbon Neutral

By Ted Nickerson The future of long distant transportation in Canada is aviation. But thanks to the flight-shaming movement, you may have been led to believe that there is no place for aviation in a carbon neutral future.  That’s not true. Sparked by recent comments from the “Stop Flying” proponents seeking to leverage the impact […]

A call for Transparency on Government land leases

It reads like a B-movie script for a government scandal. A billion dollars in government land leased out to a select few, mostly unknown, insiders well below market rates.  Brave local mayors and town councils harassed at every turn as they fight to get the attention of a distant uncaring federal government. The local citizen […]

Aviation Will Come Roaring Back!

By Ted Nickerson In 2019, major international aviation agencies (ICAO, IATA) predicted that global passenger volumes would double by 2037.  Annual passenger growth had been healthy, and all looked well.  That changed in early 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic struck. Cities, regions, and even countries went into lock-down.  Borders closed.  Aviation commercial passenger volumes crashed.  […]

CBC Misses the Big Story

What happens when a young reporter from the City meets a slick well-practiced “Rural” lobby group hunting for cheap leases on a Billion dollars of government land?  It’s a classic scene with all the right virtue signalling of farming, the environment, and food security. A warm fuzzy setup covering the warts of a Big Money ask. […]

Attack of the McMansions

Toronto’s Housing inequalities are stunning and well known. Few would disagree that, thanks to decades of constant population growth, the Greater Toronto Area is in the worst housing crisis in its history. Yet paradoxically there are neighborhoods in downtown Toronto that have fewer people in them than they did 20 years ago thanks to upsizing […]