Hello everyone,
It’s been a while – I’ve been quite occupied of late, weaving further original research into my big book project, Moorlands, which examines our widening disconnection to the land and each other through the lens of my mother’s former family farm in old Pickering Township, at the mouth of the Rouge River, near the easterly edge of Toronto.
It’s in this context that I’d like to share a good news, local story about faith in each other and reconnection to the land, in the midst of the utter madness we see unfolding south of the border.
In 1972, almost a decade after what is now the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority began expropriation procedures for Moorlands, the Federal government announced the further expropriation of 18,600 acres of Class 1 land to the north of the farm for a new, international airport. The implementation of this wrong-headed scheme entailed the unthinkable: the systematic removal of generational farm families from their ancestral land, and the Stalinization of former working villages and community hubs.
While the government’s move was sold as “progress”, this shocking loss was never forgiven or forgotten, and local, principled opposition to the airport was tirelessly maintained over five decades, spearheaded first by People or Planes, and in later years, Land Over Landings.
This past week, the Federal government announced what was viewed by many naysayers as preposterous: its intention to transfer the vast majority of the remaining airport lands to Parks Canada, and a formal consultation process to determine the best future uses of the lands. (I understand that the transfer may be achieved through statutory authority, and not through Parliament.).
I’m so grateful to all those who have been at the forefront of this tremendous effort, and am still processing what this means in the context of the decades-long David and Goliath struggle, but I do know this much: in these dark and uncertain times, with the imposition of American tariffs that threaten all sectors of our economy including agriculture, this decision is a huge win. It is also an opportunity to restore food production to Toronto’s front door, and put people who deeply want to be there back on the land in serious numbers. It is, quite simply, a decision that recognizes the Common Good over the Immortal Dollar.
One other thing that arises for me is this: despite the abject madness of ‘rugged individualism’ playing out in the United States of America, Canadians are not stuck. Call it a degree of social embeddedness, call it our frayed Tory soul, call it what you will, but let’s not underestimate the ever-present strand of communalism we retain in this country that still allows for mobilization across political parties and belief systems, and the unshaken resolve of many that thoughtful, targeted protest can still bring effective change. Canadians, We are the Land. We take care of each other. And that’s something to hold onto in what promises to be the tempestuous months, and years to come.
