Media Release: Addition of the ‘Pickering Airport Lands’ to Rouge National Urban Park a Soaring Achievement, says National Farmers Union

Treaty lands and territory of the Mississaugas of the Credit; Guelph, ON (January 27, 2025) – Chalk up a crucial win for farmland protection. As urban sprawl, highway proposals, land use policy changes, land expropriations, and rampant speculation continue to threaten Ontario’s dwindling agricultural lands, committed supporters for farmland and natural heritage protection have reason to celebrate. 

The National Farmers Union (NFU) is thrilled by Minister of Transport and Internal Trade Anita Anand’s announcement that the Government of Canada intends to transfer the majority of the high conservation value Pickering lands—formerly earmarked for an airport—to Parks Canada to expand the one-of-a-kind Rouge National Urban Park (RNUP) by thousands of hectares.

“The NFU was honoured to contribute to discussions that led to this historic decision,” says Jenn Pfenning, NFU President. “We welcome participation in the formal consultation process to envision a future for this land in the interest of First Nations, farmers, eaters, public health, food security, and for long-term ecological protection.”

Unique among Parks Canada’s properties, the newly-expanded Rouge National Urban Park is not only a crucial wildlife corridor along the Duffins Creek watershed stretching over 75 km from the shores of Lake Ontario to Stouffville, it is also home to actively farmed and leased class 1 soils—some of the province’s most productive farmland, essential to food security in a region of rapid development and population growth. 

“The expansion of Rouge National Urban Park has the potential to feed local communities, support the next generation of farmers, and revitalize our rural communities,” says Elizabeth Stocking, President of NFU-O Local 345. “Neighbouring farmers and farm workers stand ready to realize this vision.”

RNUP’s newly acquired lands are also the traditional territory of the Mississaugas of Scugog Island First Nation. The NFU supports Chief Kelly LaRocca’s request that Parks Canada work with the Williams Treaty First Nations to develop a Harvesting Agreement to allow for Indigenous traditional land use, co-management, and the honouring of all treaty rights.

This victory for ecological protection—following on the heels of RNUP expansions in 2015 and 2017 and the successful opposition to the Ontario Government’s attempts to remove adjacent Greenbelt-protected farmland in 2023—is the result of significant grassroots collaborative work going back to 1972. 

“Farmers are thankful for the tireless advocacy of allies—in particular Land Over Landings (and its predecessor, People or Planes)—for never ceding their vision to protect this invaluable green space,” says Max Hansgen, President of the NFU-O. “Here is proof that by coming together we can expand protections to prime agricultural soils in the province.” 

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For more information:

Max Hansgen, President, National Farmers Union–Ontario

president@nfuontario.ca, 613-464-1251