Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAbout2601PICKERING WEATHER MORE SNOW THIS SUMMER Established Mar. 1972 People or Planes Citizen protest is a frustrating, expensive business. Months of costly research and reasonable arguments by "People or Planes" have been brushed aside and twisted by slick Public Relations and obedient civil servants at tremendous cost to the taxpayer. The reasoned, technical arguments against the decision to build a second airport have been presented many times in many ways. Our Government has not listened. It is time to present the real story, the political story, behind their decision. That is what this pictorial editorial is all about. It takes money to fight government "facts" built on political necessities. With a narrow hearing, based on a bad decision, made for Political reasons, POP must have money to end, forever, this political airport. . Charles M. Godfrey Chairman THIS IS A STORY OF A POLITICAL DECISION THAT r RESULTED IN A RUTHLESS LANDGRAS ! IT ALL BEGAN AT MALTON AIRPORT IN r96� LOOK AT THIS e MONTREAL I S GETTING A SECOND AIRPOR METRO TORONTO'S POLITICIANS WANTED A SUPER AIRPORT TOO ! EXPERTS BEGAN THE EXPANSION PLANNING, BUT.. or WE DONT WANT TOO MUC44 WOW MORE AIRPORT! NOISE WE CANT FIGHT TH AT � d PUBLIC MEETIN PUBLIC OUTCRY AND THE FEAR OF LOSING VOTES FORCED POLITICIANS TO REJECT THAT PLAN CIRCULATION PAID 20,000 Volume 3 No. 1 February 1974 THEY STARTED PUTTING PRESSURE ON OTTAWA AND 1^0, PIERRE SET UP AN EXPENSIVE STUDY To - COOL THINGS OFF FOR HIS TORONTO M.P. S ./ T HERE ARE THE SITES THAT OUR STUDY SHOWS ARE TECHNICALLY SUITABE L TOP SECRET K I 1. Orangeville...... 2. Guelph........... 3. Lake S .......... 4. Lake Simcoe...... NOTE! NOT ONE EXPERT OR STUDY SAID WE NEEDED A SECOND AIRPORT! "MALTON should beC—tr,4X( � MEAN ' expanded to meet the needs of the SPENT45 TORONTO region overION FOR the time frame THING1970 - 2000.- .Report Ministry of Transport, August, 1970... IN 1970 A TOTAL OF 59 SITES WERE STUDIED... PSST!FOR REASONS KNOWN ONLY TO OTTAWA PICKERING WAS NOT ONE... IT WASN'T AND QUEEN'S PARK EVEN THE 'FOUR SUITABLE EVEN CONSIDERED ! SITES WERE REJECTED ! TRUDEAU-DAVIS LAND GRAB!, THEY STARTED PUTTING PRESSURE ON OTTAWA AND 1^0, PIERRE SET UP AN EXPENSIVE STUDY To - COOL THINGS OFF FOR HIS TORONTO M.P. S ./ T HERE ARE THE SITES THAT OUR STUDY SHOWS ARE TECHNICALLY SUITABE L TOP SECRET K I 1. Orangeville...... 2. Guelph........... 3. Lake S .......... 4. Lake Simcoe...... NOTE! NOT ONE EXPERT OR STUDY SAID WE NEEDED A SECOND AIRPORT! "MALTON should beC—tr,4X( � MEAN ' expanded to meet the needs of the SPENT45 TORONTO region overION FOR the time frame THING1970 - 2000.- .Report Ministry of Transport, August, 1970... IN 1970 A TOTAL OF 59 SITES WERE STUDIED... PSST!FOR REASONS KNOWN ONLY TO OTTAWA PICKERING WAS NOT ONE... IT WASN'T AND QUEEN'S PARK EVEN THE 'FOUR SUITABLE EVEN CONSIDERED ! SITES WERE REJECTED ! 'SHE PRESSURE. FROM THE M.P. S CONTINUF-D UNTIL . . . . MYtAP.S IN TORONTO NEED AN AIRPORT To CATCH VOTES, DON FIND A REASON „ FOR BUILDING OmE ! AYE, SIR! I'LL DRUM UP SOMETHING OR MY NAM E'S NOT JAMIESON � I"LL. ✓ 9 CONTACT MAEOUGH Quote from Toronto Air- port Systema Analysis, February, 1971: "HENCE DEDUCE NEED FOR MAJOR AIRPORT." I SO IT CAME TO PASS THAT TRUDEAU GAVE DON JAMIESON ORDERS TO PROCEED WHEN BILI. DAVIS AND HIS HENCHMEN WERE TOLD OF THIS REMARKABLE 'TURN CW EVERTS, THEIR JOY WAS UNCONFINED ! INOW A POLITICAL. AIRPORT I S TAK I N IS 43,000 ACRES OF FARMLAND, AND THREATENING WHOLE VILLAGES IN AN IN- CREDIBLE "ALICE IN WONDERLAND 'I EVENT MARCHAND, M'BOY, NERE'S THE HAT TFFAT MAKES YOU BOSS or- PICKERING AIRPORT .. . Q 7, SON./ THE HAT IS MY STYLE, BUT WHERE'S PICKERING ? JEAN 11II41IRCHAND TAKES OVER FROM JAMIESON HOW CAN AN INQUIRY FOR AN AIRPORT, THAT NOBODY BUT POLITICIANS AND DEVtLOPERS WANT OR NEED, EVER MAKE SENSE TO ANYBODY ? Why in the 2 years since the announcement has the Federal Government not been able to prove a need for a second Airport? Why did the Provincial Government not question the need of a decision which they helped initiate? Why has the Federal Government been reluctant to provide an unrestricted Public Inquiry into the Airport and the Provincial Government refuse to have an Inquiry into the Cedarwood Project? Why were people in Meadowvale told to complain about noise from Malton Airport (Distance 10 Miles) while the people in Stouff- ville and Markham were told that they will not be affected by noise from Pickering Airport (Distance 1 Mile)? Why did the Government hire 3 Public Relation Firms in order to sell the airport? Why will the New Toronto Zoo be unaffected by noise while Zoos, in other countries, near air- ports are affected? - Why, when the Government claims Malton is surrounded by too many people, is Ontario planning a city of 200,000 within the noise zone of the Pickering A/P? POP is faced with heavy legal costs for the coming Inquiry. If we are to save this prime farmland for agriculture and recreation we must have money. Join POP today! Membership — S5.00. Contributions of larger amounts are very much needed and, if you can afford more, that would be beautiful! r•----------------------� PEOPLE OR PLANES COMMITTEE j BOX 159, CLAREMONT, ONTARIO. j I I I I enclose my cheque for S 1 jto support P.O.P. NAME I I j STREET j I I I I I TOWN/CITY I L----------------------- I I No Airport airport no PEOPLE ON PLANES COMMITTEE P/ UpAgainstOttawa Looking back, it was an omen that shouldn't have been dismissed as a mere aberration. I wrote my first-ever letter of protest to the Prime Minister about an airport proposed for a site near my home — and received a form -letter reply from a correspondence secretary explaining why Canada had decided to extend dip- lomatic recognition to the Vatican. But I ignored the portent, because all Canada was riding a great euphoric wave called participatory democracy, and we were convinced that our voices would be heard and would count, somehow. In the 1960s, l think many people had a feeling that the bureaucracies of government and business were becom- ing so big that the voice of the average person was being correspondingly muted. It seemed more and more likely that citizens across the country could find themselves fighting City Hall, or some impersonal government depart- How People Power died of its own naivety BY BARRY CONN HUGHES ment, or a computer — and losing. Then in 1968 Pierre Trudeau came along. He was an unconventional man in the terribly conventional world of Cana- dian politics; yet he became Prime Minister. He seemed to be living proof that you could beat the system, and his remarks about "participatory democracy" and "a just society" cer- tainly implied that citizens could have an effective say in how the system was to affect them. Citizens' groups flourished. In Rich- mond, B.C., residents got their backs up and began to resist government pressure to sell their homes for an expansion of Vancouver International Airport. Ordi- nary citizens in other cities began form- ing environmental protection groups. Ratepayers' associations sprang up, dedicated to the idea that citizen par- ticipation is essential to the planning of public projects. A massive "Stop Spadina" movement in Toronto opposed the building of the 6'5 -mile Spadina Expressway that would have ripped right into the city, and in 1971 Ontario Premier William Davis was indeed moved to stop it. Said Winnipeg Mayor Stephen Juba: "What Premier Davis did in Toronto provided a terrific example for the entire nation. He had the guts to say 'hold it,' and showed the rest of us it can be done." Faith was replaced with certain knowledge. You could not only fight City Hall; it was entirely possible that you could win. Yet by February, in this Year of Our Disillusionment 1975, Metropolitan Toronto had decided to proceed with a mini-Spadina, and the federal govern- ment had announced it would go ahead with a mini -airport at Pickering, east of the city. In both cases, citizens' groups expressed their convictions that once begun, these projects would expand with a fearsome inevitability. Where have all the Flowers gone, Mr. Prime Minister? There's been some backlash, to be sure, for citizens' groups are, at the very least, a bother for established authority. Early this March, Privy Council Presi- dent Mitchell Sharp implied that if the government decides that building a Mackenzie Valley pipeline is an urgent matter, it might approve the scheme before Mr. Justice Thomas Berger's in- quiry on its social and environmental impact is completed. But it wasn't backlash that hamstrung the effectiveness of citizen involvement. What happened was that the "participa- tion" citizens thought they were engaged in was an illusion. Participatory democracy as they perceived it simply is not operative and never was. The fight of the People Or Planes organization against the Pickering air- port provides a textbook case for any - citizens who think they will be able to participate — in any meaningful way apart from the ballot box — in develop- ments that will affect their lives. (I make no claim to dispassion here, though our own home was not affected by the airport expropriations. We live in Pickering, I've been a POP member for more than three years and continue to support it. 1 can only say that you will never know what it's like to fight City Hall until you've tried.) People Or Planes was created March 2, 1972, the day Donald Jamieson, then Minister of Transport, announced that a new international airport for Metro Toronto would be located on some 18,000 acres to be expropriated in the Pickering Township area just northeast. Malton, the existing airport to the north- west, would not be expanded — its near- by residents were already disturbed about noise. At the same time, Ontario Treasurer Darcy McKeough unveiled provincial plans for Cedarwood, some- times called North Pickering, a city of 250,000 to be built just south of the new airport site on 25,000 acres that would be expropriated if they couldn't be bought. These decisions had been made without our involvement and we were taken by surprise. Our federal and provincial representatives, and even the reeve of Pickering, didn't know about the airport location until that day. Still, if any group snould have been able to beat City Hall, it was the move- ment that grew out of that first angry meeting of about 100 Pickering residents at the century -old Melody Farm on the proposed airport site. Within three weeks, People Or Planes had become a well -organized and smoothly function- ing pressure group. We were all caught up in it. Business - suited commuters who worked in the city and farmers just back from doing the chores formed close friendships in a common cause. Respectable matrons found themselves waving placards. Quiet folk who'd never protested about anything wrote strong letters to the edi- tor. Ordinary people who could never relate to wild-eyed hippies who wrecked computers, could rise up to fight for or- dinary things like home, family, com- munity and the good earth. We were determined to participate in decisions that affected those things. POP's parliament was a steering com- mittee that met weekly and included area captains from all the towns and hamlets in the region, plus committee heads responsible for publicity, agricultural and technical arguments, ar- tistic and design efforts for sighs and buttons, fund-raising, senior citizens' and youth groups, legal matters, and a diplomatic committee that pursued our case more privately with the politicians. Fortunately, we found that the grow- ing membership included experts in nearly every field we needed, and this broad base was to prove POP's strength. A partial list of members' occupations includes: farmer, lawyer, factory worker, aeronautical engineer, bank clerk, mu- nicipal councilor, businessman, artist, carpenter, naturalist, printer, manage- ment consultant, housewife, juvenile court judge, student, teacher, secretary, greenhouse operator — and journalist. POP armed itself with expertise, enthusiasm, and above all persistence. Today, more than mree years after that first announcement, POP's publicity committee meets most mornings, the POP office is open daily at the old Cedar Grove School, and the steering commit- tee still meets every week. This tenacity was fuelled only partly by the gut reaction of those who didn't want their homes and farms taken from them. Many POP supporters like our- selves lived outside the immediate area, in Toronto and elsewhere, and were con- cerned about the general degradation of the environment and the apparent in- sensitivity of governments. We decided the line had to be drawn somewhere — and that somewhere was Pickering. Money was a constant problem. While POP members were chipping in with their bowling night money and bake sale receipts, the federal government was using massive amounts of our tax dollars to sell us on the airport we didn't want. For instance, just one of POP's many briefs, releases and position papers sug- gested that gulls might interfere with aircraft operations in the area. The Min- istry of Transport then commissioned a bird study. It refuted the claim—and cost $253,000. Despite the massive government at- tempts to justify its decision after the fact, some residents just couldn't believe that the airport/city complex could go through. It clearly violated the prov- ince's Toronto -Centred Region Nan, which was designed to stop Toronto's urban sprawl by stimulating growth centres farther away. How could they possibly stop the sprawl by placing an airport and a whole new city hard by Metro's border, in an area the Toronto Plan had designated as an agricultural and recreational greenbelt? People who buy homes near an exist- ing airport like Malton presumably know what they're getting into, but people who moved out to the peaceful countryside around Pickering had made a conscious decision to get away from the city's noise and bustle. One of them was Dr. Charles Godfrey, a specialist in rehabilitative medicine who'd also been farming a property in Pickering for ten years, and then built a home on it. Ar- ticulate, energetic, and obviously angry at the shattering of his own dream, Dr. Godfrey was quickly elected chairman of the People Or Planes organization. He warned us against complacency, and he was right. But mistrusting estab- lished institutions came hard for the POP movement, rooted as it was in con- servatism rather than radicalism. Out natural inclination was to place our faith in our elected members and in the legis- latures in which we had placed them. As it turned out, the airport proposal was never aired in a full debate in the House of Commons, and the Cedarwood city project was similarly neglected in the Ontario legislature. Two successive Pickering Township councils, in 1972 and 1974, voted against the airport for all the good it did. The federal member for Ontario Rid- ing was liberal Norm Cafik, who at first opposed the airport. He is an ambitious man, and it soon became evident that he was not going to place his career in jeopardy by opposing the Liberal party line. His position, if it could be called that; became: an airport if necessary, but continued not necessarily an airport Cafik's artful mugwumpery com- pletely turned off POP supporters; and Cafik himself later tried to get out of the whole business by running for the leadership of the provincial Liberals. He lost, however, and remains the unenvi- able man in the middle. Meanwhile, POP had turned to the public for sympathy and support. Literally hundreds of bodies across Canada have the power to expropriate private property. We had to get it across to people that it wasn't just a matter of a few hundred homes being taken in Pickering — it could happen to anybody anywhere in the country, with no more justification. In nine months, POP pro- duced an incredible number of rallies, festivals, demonstrations and public relations activities. POP organized letter - writing campaigns, and its speakers fanned out across southern Ontario. Members produced a short film, a color slide show and even a book (People or Planes, by Hector Massey and Charles Godfrey, Copp Clark). Ten conservation areas surround the site, and to remind Torontonians of this attractive recreation spot so close to the city, POP threw a two-day Spring Festival in May of 1972, with hayrides, square dancing, apple cider, nature walks, weaving and sheep -shearing demonstrations, horseshoe pitching and the inevitable bake sale. We raised more than $7,000 at this function alone, and POP garnered more signatures for an anti -airport petition that eventually reached about 10,000 names. All this helped to keep the pot boiling, but did not give the residents an official forum in which to register their objec- tions. Both federal and provincial ex- propriation legislation provides for public hearings. But they're not man- datory in Ontario, and the province decided to avoid a lot of trouble and skip it, thus foiling any serious hearing of ob- jections to Cedarwood. So POP strategists rested their hopes on the airport hearing required by the federal statutes. To our dismay, we found that, under statute, the hearing officer was charged only with hearing the objections and reporting them. POP would have no opportunity to cross- examine the Ministry of Transport plan- ners. And the federal government was under no obligation to do anything more than "receive" the report. We were being handed a stacked deck — but it was the only game in town and we had to play. The hearing began Nov. 23, 1972. Hearing officer 1.W. Swackhamer stated at the outset that there was "no issue to be determined by me and no recom- mendations required of me." POP engaged lawyer J.J. Robinette, who'd fought the Spadina Expressway before the Ontario Municipal Board, to appear at the expropriation hearing and to argue for a full public inquiry. He was backed by 2,200 objectors represented by People Or Planes. The Swackhamer Report released Jan. 30, 1973 recorded the objections faithfully, including those of L.D. Almack, the management consultant and professional engineer who headed the POP technical committee. The thrust of his argument was that a second Toronto airport was not needed because present technology could accommodate increased passenger demand at Mallon, just as technology could reduce noise disturbance there. He produced statistics to challenge the government planners' assumptions of air traffic growth, which had projected 60 million passengers in the Toronto area by the year 2000. Traffic forecasting, as historian Donald Creighton once said, is akin to astrology, and you had to wonder about a iMmistry of Transport horoscope that had self -multiplying figures in an ever - rising curve. It sounded as if they were predicting cancer, not growth. It was a political decision anyway, said Almack, because while the planners had at first calculated that fitting another runway into existing space at Malton Airport could let it cope with much more traffic, this course was rejected when the government decided that local opposi- tion to noise made that "politically un- saleable." Swackhamer did make one recom- mendation. He said the set tariff of fees payable to witnesses for their prepara- tion and research was "totally inade- quate for the services performed by some of the persons who appeared." He recommended greatly increased pay- ments. This would have added nearly $10,000 to POP's coffers to continue the fight, but it was never paid. When the government tabled the Swackhamer report in January, 1973, along with it was a "response" by the Ministry of Transport attacking the ob- jections it recorded. At the same time the new minister, Jean Marchand, an- nounced that the government had decided to go ahead and confirm the ex- propriations. Before construction began, however, Marchand promised that an independent group would conduct an open public discussion on the whole issue. The order in council for this came through nine months later, the inquiry itself did not get under way for more than a year. POP kept itself busy in the interim. One obvious stratagem had been to rebuff the Liberals' man on the scene at the polls during the 1972 elec- tion. But the ballot box has its limita- tions. While 25,822 people voted against Norm Cafik and only 16,328 voted for him, the POP vote split between the two opposition parties and Cafik eked out a four -vote win. Still, anti -airport support was growing, especially in Toronto even though nobody there was faced with expropria- tion. A rally on April 23, 1973 at the St. Lawrence Centre in the heart of the city packed the hall And less than a week later, a poll for the Toronto Star showed 56 per cent of Metro Toronto residents against the airport and only 26 per cent in favor. We were going to win! The Prime Minister himself had said in a speech on March 23, 1972: "if we can be con- vinced that the majority of the people living in this area don't want an airport, I can guarantee we will stop the pro- cedures soon, but it might be hard to get that majority." We were assured that the democratic process would work. All we had to do was to keep up the pressure. Publish another newspaper, hold another bake sale, recruit more members, write more letters. Represen- tatives spoke to audiences at places rang- ing from a steelworkers' hall to a Unitarian church, questioning the need for a second airport, pointing out developments in aircraft noise reduction that would ease any problems at Malton, and in alternate forms of transit like short takeoff and landing planes and high-speed trains. Even if a new airport were needed, they argued, scrub land at Camp Borden to the north of Toronto would be a far better option than taking 18,000 acres of prime farmland out of circulation. We kept up the protest, though adver- tising, publishing newspapers and brochures, paying legal fees, telephone and office expenses were a heavy finan- cial burden. Advertising and promotion alone cost $21,165.81 during the first year of the protest. Then the Order In Council, dated Oc- tober, 1973, created the Airport Inquiry Commission. It was composed of Mr. Justice Hugh Gibson, a judge of the federal court of Canada, Murray Jones of Toronto and Dr. Howard Petch of Kitchener. And its terms of reference were restrictively narrow. So narrow, in fact, that POP could only conclude that they were designed to choke off all the points we had made previously and all the objections presented to the Swackhamer hearing. The Commission was to consider only New evidence, if forthcoming — and its report habitually capitalized the word New — that had not been in the mind of the government before Jan. 30, 1973 when i1 recon rowed its decision 10 go ahead with 1he airport. POP hired another lawyer for the sec- ond bout, and at the Commission's organizational hearings he argued for a wide interpretation of the terms of reference, and for money to bring in outside experts to contest the studies on which the airport decision was made. "This commission," said Mr. Justice Gibson, "does not accept the fallacious premise that what the Government of Canada has filed is false and that the function of this inquiry is to search the world for experts to disprove it." The message was clear: it was to be Govern- ment vs. The People, and the Ministry of Transport studies were to be taken more or less as gospel. Dr. Godfrey, the People Or Planes chairman, had another bone to pick. He had discovered that Commissioner Jones, a planning consultant, had once expressed an opinion that weighed against expanding Mallon, and he ques- tioned whether he could qualify as being impartial. Godfrey made an application to the Federal Court for an order prohi- biting the Commission from conducting further proceedings. Zap! To make sure court casts would be paid if they lost, Godfrey et al were ordered to post a $25,000 bond — which POP, of course, did not have — and had to withdraw. The Commission required that sub- missions be received in writing in ad- vance. But a public hearing should give all interested parties the chance to make their case in public, and the anti -airport witnesses were eager to appear and read out their -briefs. Yet the Commission re- port says there were about 250 people "who submitted evidence statements and had the opportunity to give oral evi- dence in support [of the statements], but for reasons of their own they did not." This is a --gross distortion. The Com- mission's counsel actively discouraged many citizens from reading their briefs and, if they insisted, would suggest that they merely summarize them. The hear- ings stretched from March to August of 1974, and many were called when they weren't able to be present. Resident John Livingstone, who had written the Commission saying that he could testify "at any time except the evening of Wednesday, April 10," when he had to attend a Lenten church service, was called on the evening of Wednesday, April 10 — and was refused permission to testify at a later date. With all this, we could only view it as a foregone conclusion when, at the end of January, the Commission came out in favor of a Pickering airport. The federal government decided to start with only one runway, and the provincial govern- ment had scaled down the size of its Cedarwood project considerably; but these were small consolations. What hurt POP supporters was not so much that we had failed to win after fighting so long and so hard, and after raising and spending nearly $100,000 in the attempt. It was that both hearings had been so constructed as to minimize any serious challenge to the govern- ment's decision. Some participation. Members sense a betrayal of the ideal of participatory democracy as ex- pounded by the Prime Minister. True, he never said that it meant decisions should be taken in the streets. "It doesn't mean," Trudeau said once, "that those who participate must necessarily be those who decide." Our complaint is that the "participation" itself was a sham. As a result of the experience, some members now refuse to have anything to do with the political process. Dr. Godfrey, on the other hand, is still game. "You either get into it or get out of it altogether and become a hermit," he says now. "1 want to stay in it and try to make participatory democracy really work." He's resigned the POP chairman- ship to become a provincial NDP candi- date. POP itself has merged its efforts with the Metro Toronto Airport Review Committee, a coalition of civic and en- vironmental groups that continue to op- pose the airport. They remain convinced that the airport makes no more sense than it ever did, especially in a time of rapid inflation, energy shortages, and disappearing farmland. As for me, l still take my text from the POP membership card. It's a simple card, designed and printed by volun- teers. On one side it says People Or Planes, P.O. Box 159, Claremont, Ont., and on the other, there's a quote from the 1972 United Nations' Declaration on the Human Environment: "Individuals in all walks of life, as well as organizations in many fields, by their values and the sum of their actions, will shape the world." Recently I took a drive north through Pickering Township. I know the conces- sion lines now by their afflictions. The Third Line is where there's a Toronto garbage dump. The Fifth, where some- body has erected a big sign saying "You Are Now Entering The Davis Land -grab Region," is Cedarwood country. And by the Seventh, you're in airport country, where you see the now -poignant signs saying, "We Will Not Be Moved." I visited Miss Aileen Adams at the old Melody Farm. She, and the elderly Mr. and Mrs. Gordon Auld around the cor- ner, had expected to live out their years in the neat and charming homes now slated to be taken for the airport. Her bags were packed and sitting by the door. She was about to enter hospital because of what the strain of the whole experience has done to her. I noticed that Miss Aileen Adams had brought in some forsythia branches so that they would bloom early this year. to People Or Planes: Chronicle of a losing battle t SPRING FESTIVAL 7 T EA GARDE N March, 17 / 2 Soon mer the Pickering airport announcement, May, 17 / 2 The protesters staged a two-day Spring Festival over the People OrPlanessteering committee set up shop in an old schoolhouse. 30 square miles of Pickering Township and 50,000 Toronto -area residents There was a three-year battle ahead. came to sample the rural life on their doorstep. June, 17 / 2 With handmade robes and coffins, residents held a mock funeral at Ontario's Queen's Park, to demonstrate what would be lost if the airport and its accompanying satellite city went through. JuneJ7 / J POP declared the demonstration "unofficial," but a group of residents hanged Prime Minister Trudeau and Premier Davis in effigy, insisting they bore the ultimate responsibility for Pickering's fate. W r� } 'r f A - September, 1973 Pickering produce was trucked to Toronto City Hall for a harvest festival designed to remind city people that the bulk of the airport site was classed by experts as prime farmland. July, 19 4 More than a dozen of the region's artists and sculptors donated'their efforts to POP. As well as paintings, symbols and graphics, they produced "Blunderland" road signs for the area. M2 October, 19 /T Antique pine furniture and farm produce were featured at a POP auction that raised $3,851 for the cause. Farm wives held a bake sale, as they did at most of the public functions. February,1975After three years of meetings and protests, residents heard that the federal government would construct an airport any- way — though not on the scale that was first planned. YOU ARE ENTERING�I GREAT GOVERNMENTr CK -NO CRAB. sf REGION) 50 -0100 a" "M A SIGN OF RESENTMENT A road sign on Highway 7 near proposed airport in Pick• eying, east of Toronto, Mnts out the feeling of some residents who must give up land. Original sign read, You Are Entering Great Pine Ridge Tourist Region. i:?la s+J �a BY HELENN WORTHINGTON �S:i�::+ .:.3.:;.v ..�tk..".':'+.3.`;;t :•`:?`! t*<3k;:�� »s%�l:• L.. sxS2Ats.';n ., �.:. ,.,n:;;.::::y.:::n::.:�. .:�.::,:...:.�.. �.. ::;:.>y,,...:..3:n.,.F.:.:,:..,n• 'ysl.;:.:::;�.�+�'•,..r..::l.:::�:::.>x.>:n;:.::. :.Jy..J.>.y.y.�.......:,.441.:.,; ........: xi4.' .. .... .... nJ. .....n ..... :.... n,. ........ .... .,..n... .... ....... v,...... ,. r. vn,...:...... x..... .. xt.:;.y,••s >i::?E�'s ;s:L'::3::sxa .. •Y^:tsKe;�n :!o`.G:;;<:;' ::+icl.'S4�PA.iEi` :. \ . ::nxfi:::::4 >;x:.::n.:... , ;;,�.:: �'r��, :` ::sir <!:».>< : �i'a t ... X;. a3:0: Fr:x i, v...\.. :.. .. v:+'b a'v>s; �':::jl�"'"t. �:k4+' Star staff: writer ......, .. .......�.'fi ...... ............. .... :. ...... .+'i'....... :.»:..:. .3...l... ..... ..., ..tJ..............W..... .., .. ..w :.n.....+x :. ..:,. ..:.: v.. ... .. .. t+au.. ......................... ....�..`..... Qt rC 3: ..... ....... ...... £, .. ,. t:., .: :. ...+.... J... e,Jka�:. £y .�:i`.'•'.:.> :r7,;. :.ya�.-:a..cti,: �, n�2.. ,..9^� �`s s'�'' Cyt, "r.:Nis:i:�x .,. tl':.. Y:tt { :`� '+;YA, ,.s. .t+,'is, .. i."t.' "tF":.)�i:,: : +v,'r';(,:.. ,,,y %.. � ^a There istands,:m all i esti an er t is .went s le rat :.£.:Yv ys 3:3r .+ t A:� A ., ,4,. t•Y. :..:.msa'�� the corner of Highway 7 and Brock Rd., north of Pickering. It's the showplace of the tiny hamlet of Brougham and THIS BEAUTIFUL old home, dating back to 1842, is owned by Mr. and Mrs. Don Gibson. Gibson, a vice - surrounding countryside, due to be torn d9wn to make way for the new airport. president of General Foods, put in much time, energy And anyone who's" been reading the papers lately situated in Brougham, it is,an architecturaltreasure and money restoring the, Georgian revival landmark. knows what's going to happen to Brougham and—inevitab- ly—its showplace. People power they call it. Sit back and watch this one. advantage of a quiet country life plus the advantage of It is going to:bewiped off the map, obliterated, zapped Or join in -the fray. 'It's going to be a beauty. being close enough to earn a living in the city. out 'of existence, =to make way for, our new international It, istarted off last night at a people power meeting in Thein reaction "was first disbelief, .then outrage. The airport. That's progress for you: Here one year; gone the•next. Brougham hall -which overflowed into the neighboring church, with lots of biggies backing the battle. result: A battle cry: words In the of Mrs. R. M. Elmer, who her The showplace? A glorious old._home, dating back to 1842, which is Professor Donald, Creighton, probably Canada's most ,with engineer husband and three children moved into a"magnifi- recognized as a perfect architectural tribute to our rural •eminent historian, 'lives in the area and is prepared to `So Gently renovated 135 -year-old farmhouse four years ago:' Ontario past: - fight. is >filmmaker Chris Chapman,, who doesn't even "We're not just complaining about the loss of our own This home is listed in Canada's public archives as an live there, but wants to see this supreme sample of rural ° home, but about the fact that this lovely' farmland will be architectural treasure; and it is mentioned in the book, The Ontario p reserved.o ruined. We're fighting to save rural Ontario." Ancestral Roof ` as a perfect example of the Georgian Let's face it. No . matter which. area was • chosen for Meanwhile, Mrs. Don Gibson who, with her husband, revival style adapted to Ontario 130 years ago.Y expropriation to make wa for the new airport, the resi-' P put years of "blood, sweat and tears" into their home, tries , To Mr. and Mrs. Don Gibson, who resurrected the dents would have screamed. - not to think of the unthinkable expropriation. place from disrepair and lavished love and money upon it But a drive through the lovely rolling rural countryside to restore it to its former elegance, the threat of expropri , near Brougham and a look into some of the homes there, Ren9vations halted tion comes as a crushing blow. both , o.d and new; makes you wonder if there wasn't somewhere a less picturesque spot to be ravaged. ` . But if the worst comes to the "worst, they'dike to see Crushing blow What Mrs. Lorne Almaek of Claremont would like to do their landmark residence preserved by the Architectural is invite Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, Mrs. Trudeau Conservancy and moved to another location. To. anyone in this country interested in preserving our and, Baby Justin, to her home fora weekend to , see for At the moment she's into -a second renovation of the, architectural heritage, it is also a crushing blow, themselves what the federal government is going to do. historical interior- but has had to cancel new drapes and The L Gibsons are preparing to fight for their treasure ; Six years ago the`. Almacks built their dream home high other things 'she had on order. and concerned architectural conservationists are preparing on the" top of a oiiill with },all to h,a-.i windows overlooking "Just think" she says, "my children may never be also to man the barricades. thein own 120 -acre va•ley with picnic tables, stream, and able to bring their own children back here and say `I grew What's in the offing is another battle on the same scale bird -feeding -stations. up here, I .climbed` that tree, I smoked behind that as -or even bigger than—the one which stopped the Spadi- *ey, ,;ke the many other city slickers who moved into barn.. . '' t ma Expressway. the area, renovating historic homes or building new ones, Only this time the troops aren't fighting City Hall; came. to Claremont to get away from noise and pollution. they're taking on. the. government of Canada. Theyi considered they had -the best of two worlds: the Star photos by Dick Loek r...ti • . i' .., y { nYi� ':si. ,wpy�r w'S .Y+Ye9 1y1�.: 'd.' d! i; '� „ THIS BEAUTIFUL old home, dating back to 154.2., is owned by Mr. and firs. Don Gibson. Gibson, a .ice- due to be torn down to make way for the new airport. president of General Foods, put in much time, energy Situated in Brougham, it is an architectural treasure and money restoring the Georgian revival landmark. I Al s-� A' 'M&L2 i. COXPAH90TL - nn INOrid CLMAN � Farmlan Ox, F I 41t,/\� ■ WE DID IT loo��� THANKS AA pool ;ort "Fv,,. A l�'��yIN� , toI'S I o KV, nd r Uimila HERRFAJ iesche�'j 4 ou�P 0 0- U�__ 6.S i Ok OL low � k Site of y DAVID WORKING TOGETHER PETERSON DESTROYING MEMORIAL ONTARIOS HERITAGEDUMP FOODEANDS