More than a full pandemic year after the appearance of this post, the inaccuracies are still there and have become increasingly objectionable. It is dishonest for the Region to mischaracterize KPMG’s conclusions and then use that mischaracterization to imply that the airport is a certainty. It is not. In 2020, the aviation sector was already widely viewed as being on a collision course with climate change – and that was before COVID-19 surfaced and sent it into a tailspin. There is still no clarity as to when a global post-pandemic recovery will start, how long it will take, and how different the world will be in its wake. In the past twelve months, airlines have gone bankrupt, hundreds of airports around the world have faltered or been shuttered, and many expansion plans have been cancelled or have failed to attract investors. COVID-19 was often the cause, but so was the growing realization that greenhouse-gas emissions must be tackled seriously and swiftly as the climate emergency intensifies.
In short, it is deceptive of Durham Region to imply that a Pickering airport is a foregone conclusion (it is not) and that KPMG recommended a Pickering airport to Transport Canada (they did not). The public deserves an accurate accounting of KPMG’s findings and conclusions. We have taken the liberty of extracting the most egregious statements from the 2020 post, explaining why they mislead and showing what KPMG really said. Please see attached. The page numbers are the individual reports’ page numbers followed in square brackets by the compiled report’s page numbers.