From Richard’s desk…
REPORT: City of Pickering: Council meeting, Apr. 24
Primary Agenda: Pickering Airport
There were about a dozen delegations presenting to the Pickering Councillors, and most of them dealt with the proposed Pickering airport.
Mary Delany, LandoverLandings
Mary Delany, chair of LandoverLandings, a citizens’ organization opposed to the proposed Pickering airport, was a powerful start to the delegation parade of the evening. She was dynamic, on-point, and steadfast in her focus. When prodded by Mayor Ashe, she responded knowledgeably, intelligently with facts rather than subjective frivolity. LandoverLandings has been recipient of an environmental award by the City and if Mary Delany is indicative of the group’s thinkers, then the message it delivers deserves very serious consideration and thought. Opposed to the airport, LandoverLandings support high speed rail as the practical alternative to any airport.
June Enright, Anti-airport
This great-grandmother’s presentation had an emotional attraction. A great-grandmother representing multi-generations from older, her mom is 105, to much younger, great-grandchildren. So this delegate’s stake in the battle against the airport is familial. She wants her family protected from the potentially destructive impacts of an airport on the Class A farmland of the region and the environment in general. She too was a supporter of Rapid Rail transit.
Cynthia Davis (BSc, MSc, President and CEO) Lakeridge Health
Cynthia Davis, CEO of Lakeridge Health, arguably was the most powerful of the delegations at this council meeting. Her presentation seemed to be a fundraising endeavour for the Lakeridge Health facility, and she was very persuasive in this endeavour. She proudly explained the recent partnering of Lakeridge with Queen’s University to create a medical training school in Pickering, to be launched Sept. 2023. The school hopes to alleviate the problems associated with the growing aged population and the need for more general medical practitioners. Canada has more than a million people without family medical care association and the new school seeks to alleviate the problem by graduating more general medical practitioners. Lakeridge Health is a multi-focused medical facility, hospital, long-term care residence, mental health care and more. The council has designated $200,000 to LH.
Sharon Powell, private anti airport delegation
This delegate supports high-speed rail as a viable alternative to any proposed airport. She stated that the Pickering Council was pro-airport and that the council should cease all expenditures promoting it.
Anthony Yacub, “Serving the people, protecting the community:
The primary concern of this delegation was how Pickering was managing revenues from the Casino and when its current policy of sharing casino revenue with other municipalities would end. The response from the council was that such sharing would continue until the end of the term of this council.
Janice Frampton, Election 2022 mayoral candidate
Mayor Ashe’s misnaming of Ms Frampton as “Janet” may have been an honest mistake, after all, Frampton nearly snatched the mayoral victory from Ashe in the last municipal election. Frampton is a retired CP Air stewardess with over thirty years of service. She is a community activist leading an anti-airport group. Her presentation was a warning that the unforeseeable and unexpected could result in Pickering Airport becoming a ‘white elephant’ as Mirabel Airport is to Montreal, a very expensive financial sinkhole caused by unforeseen and unexpected events like jet-age technological modernization, lack of proper infrastructure and municipal connectivity for passengers and Quebec’s Bill 101, the language bill that drove away many successful and financially powerful corporations elsewhere in Canada. She asserted that High-Speed Rail, a likely endeavour in Pickering, would be the death knell of any airport as the Rome-Milan high-speed train affected Alitalia Airlines in Italy.
Frampton closed her presentation by critiquing the council’s current budget as being confusing, overly generalized, and developer centred. She concluded with a call to regional municipality consolidation to oppose the destructive policies of Premier Doug Ford.
Ted Nickerson, Gateway Partners
Retired engineer, Ted Nickerson’s presentation was another informative and educational address relating to the airport proposal for Pickering. Nickerson evaluated and analyzed the repercussions of an airport on employment and environmental concerns in the region. His conclusion was that an airport was inevitable and therefore, the council should concentrate on dealing with its reality instead of plans for its creation.
Helen Brenner, anti airport delegation
Helen Brenner, speaking for her anti-airport association described the biggest impacts of the proposed airport on the region as relating to pollution, air, health, and noise. She made the questionable claim that all the councillors but one opposed the airport, concluding that another airport would be needed in the GTA until the mid-2030s.
Margaret Bowie, chair, Rougemount Community and Recreation Assoc.
Chair of the recently established Rougement Community and Recreation Association, Bowie was critical of the current Pickering budget calling for it to be more innovative, more farsighted, and more specific in how it impacts on the city. “The people of Pickering should have more information about the outcomes of the budget.”
Maurice Brenner acknowledged the launch of the RCRA and stated that he was responsible for the City of Pickering’s assistance to the association in relation to printing needs.
Louis Bertrand, retired Durham College Professor, anti airport
The final delegation for which this attendee remained, was presented by retired local college professor, Louis Bertrand. Bertrand focussed on the environmental impact of the airport: destruction of farmland, devastating pollution, and destructive impact on the flora and fauna of the region. When queried about young people’s concerns about an airport in Pickering, Professor Bertrand deflected into how the school emphasized workplace preparation of young people, not environmental consciousness.
