Written By: David Sprague, President Buttonville Flying Club
Toronto: Recently, members of the Buttonville Flying Club attended a series of publicly held municipal planning meetings. On behalf of the 200 plus members of the Buttonville Flying Club, part of the Canadian Owners and Pilots Association, I would like to thank the competent and organized elected officials and staff of Durham Region for recognizing the importance of aviation. The Region’s recently released draft Official Plan is the culmination of years of work completed through the Envision Durham process, the Municipal Comprehensive Review of Durham’s existing strategic growth plan.
The plan includes input from individuals, planning experts, businesses and not-for-profit organizations such as our flying club. It will replace a planning document released 30 years ago. A lot has changed in 30 years, including the growing importance of aviation to our economy. The new logistics hub and airport planned in North Pickering cannot come a moment too soon.
With Covid behind us, the capacity crunch at our major commercial airports, especially Toronto Pearson International Airport (CYYZ), are well known. What is less well known, is the dire situation developing in Southern Ontario for General and Business Aviation. Airports that traditionally serve GA and BA have limited ability to accommodate additional growth. Space at Toronto Buttonville Municipal Airport (CYKZ), historically on of Ontario’s busiest airports, is at a premium. The Oshawa Executive Airport (CYOO) is already trying to evict a flight school to reduce daily flight numbers.
The new airport in Pickering will remedy both the BA and GA capacity issues, enhance safety, provide badly needed new industrial space and provide the capacity for future passenger flights.
For more than a decade the Buttonville Flying Club’s members have been volunteering their aviation expertise in support of a new airport on land set aside in Pickering. Since 2017, our club members have created a framework to discuss the need for the new airport, which can be found at www.PickeringAirport.org. This includes more than 130 well researched and written articles about the need and role of the new airport.
The Buttonville Flying Club’s volunteers look forward to continuing to support our community with educational efforts on the role of aviation in Canada’s modern industrial economy and the value of local accessible aviation. Working together we can help foster the appropriate conditions for a prosperous Net Zero emissions future in which the new airport in Pickering is the lynch pin of our connection to the global economy.
For more information, contact Mr. David Sprague at sprague@rogers.com.
