The 34th Anniversary

LAST STAND is the heroic true story of ordinary citizens who found the courage to fight 'Big Government' and win. For 34 years, the dedicated men and women of ‘PEOPLE OR PLANES’, ‘VOCAL’ and ‘LAND OVER LANDINGS’ have battled the Government of Canada to stop a proposed international airport and save 18,600 acres of the richest farmland Canada.

A Peter Shatalow Film. Available on DVD - 73 Minutes

Attend the WORLD PREMIERE of LAST STAND

March 2nd, 2006, the 34th anniversary of the announcement of the airport.

J Clarke Richardson Collegiate Auditorium
1355 Harwood Ave. N.
Ajax, Ontario

The Last Stand Synopsis:

LAST STAND, a feature documentary, is the heroic true story of ordinary citizens who found the courage to fight 'Big Government' and win. For 34 years the dedicated men and women of North Pickering have battled the Government of Canada to stop a proposed international airport and save 18,600 acres of the richest farmland Canada.

In 1972, the Federal Government expropriated 18,600 of class 1 farmland in Pickering township, north east of Toronto, to build a second international airport. It was a political decision by Trudeau government. Quebec’s Premiere Bourassa was given Mirabel and Ontario Premiere Bill Davis would also have a second airport. Then came an avalanche of protests from everywhere.

That evening a meeting was held at Melody Farm where Matthew Lount had lived, a rebel who was executed by the government of Canada in 1837. The group formed that night to fight the airport was called PEOPLE OR PLANES. POP membership was an eclectic mix including farmers, lawyers, doctors, home-makers and artists - all law abiding citizens turned political activists in a 'war' against the government of Canada. Dr. Charles Godfrey was elected chairman of the group and Bill Lishman was their creative director.

In October 1972, expropriation notices went out. People lost land that had been in the family for generations. Others took the money and ran. Other held their ground and fought. The battle lasted 3 ½ years. People or Planes used every weapon in their arsenal, from leaked reports, to legal briefs, to street theatre.

In home movies, we capture the ‘funeral march’ on Queens Park in 1972, ‘Earth Days’ in the summer of 1973, the ‘hanging of Trudeau and Davis’, in effigy, on rebel lands and a ‘hang gliding flight’ over the Parliament Buildings, in protest.

In August 1975 the federal government was destroying home on the planned runways. 1300 women vowed to lie down in front of the bulldozers if the destruction continued.

On September 25th, 1975, after a heroic stand-off in Ernie Carruther’s farm house, the Federal government scrapped the airport and became landlords of the largest parcel of prime (A1) farmland east of Toronto. For the next twenty year, Transport Canada, continued to quietly plan an airport on the lands. At the same time they were terrible landlords. Of the 700 homes on the land at the time of expropriation, less than 300 remain. As people moved out of the houses, they were boarded up, left to rot and eventually bulldozed into a pile of rubble.

In August 1998 a small article appeared in the Toronto Star announcing the Federal government’s intention to declare the Pickering lands as an airport site. It was met with immediate opposition from former POP members and a new generation of activists. A new organization, VOCAL (Voters Organized to Cancel Airport Lands) was formed and began to organize. Using mass protests and fax and mail campaigns they were able to defer the designation.

Municipalities, local interest groups and Transport Canada, participated in stakeholder meetings for the next five years with Transport Canada intent on moving toward an airport on the lands.

In 2003, the GTAA (Greater Toronto Airport Authority) was asked by the federal government to prepare a plan for the Pickering Lands. After spending millions, they released their plan to Transport Canada and the community. It was met with vocal opposition. Their plan was to drop a Cessna airport in the middle of 11,000 acres of prime farmland, worth $5.8 billion. Their business plan didn’t fly. But they were moving toward to $10 to $20 million EA.

In the winter of 2004, over the protests of a new group, LAND OVER LANDING, headed by former POP activist Michael Robertson, Public Works demolished 25 homes on the Pickering Lands and sent out eviction notices to another 13 homes.

Convinced of the facts, Liberal MP, Mark Holland, took up the case in Ottawa and persuaded the Transport Minister to hold a peer review of the GTAA plan. It would also consider the aviation needs and capacity in all of southern Ontario, effectively stalling the EA and any potential airport for years. But Transport Canada continued with airport zoning regulations which affected 80,000 parcels of land in a 15km radius around the site. Land values drop about 17% in an airport zone, costing property owners hundreds of millions of dollars in value.

Most people are in agreement - an airport on the Pickering Lands will never be needed. It is the largest publicly owned A1 farm land in Canada. It is a tremendous Canadian asset. There is a great opportunity to create a national park, a vast green space, a wind farm, in the public trust, on the doorstep of the biggest city in Canada.

Will we finally do the right thing with this precious asset?

Today the people of Pickering continue their battle against the Government of Canada to stop the airport and save the land.