Today we released our latest research report, “THEN/NOW/NEXT: 21st-Century Reasons to Cancel Pickering Airport”. It is a fact-filled, up-to-the-minute, no-punches-pulled look at a dozen powerful reasons (some of them game changers) for ending four decades of limbo and putting the “airport site” to far wiser use.
1. Carbon Emissions and Climate Change
2. Food Security
3. A New-Farmer Shortage
4. Dozens of Indigenous Sites
5. Protection of History and Natural Capital
6. Ontario’s Land-Use Policies
7. Canada Geese
8. Rouge National Urban Park (RNUP)
9. Toronto Pearson’s Ground Lease
10. The Southern Ontario Airport Network (SOAN)
11. A Stranded Asset
12. The High Cost of Perpetual Limbo
Not one of these topics was seen as an issue in 1973, the last time the federal government held a public inquiry into the plan for a Pickering airport. Some weren’t known. Some didn’t exist and were never anticipated. But they exist now, and they warrant serious attention.
Every day brings more news of how climate breakdown and the heating of our planet will affect our future – not least our food sources and the global food supply chain.
So what about the remaining Federal Lands, these 9,600 acres of prime farmland beside Canada’s largest population centre? Will they be transformed into an important training ground for new farmers and a source of fresh food for the GTA? Or…
Please read this report. And then let’s work together to ensure that these Lands will be used to help feed us and our kids far into the future.