Toronto Anniversary

No, I'm not talking about the contrived 175th anniversary dreamt up by the "large imperfect" Mayor, David Miller, and the sinecurists down at City Hall. As I received an issue of "My Toronto," a rag published in twelve different languages at vast expense by the boroughmongers, I was thinking of another anniversary altogether. That is the seventieth anniversary of Toronto City Centre Airport, which has passed by unremarked. Turns out the first aircraft landed at the island airport on February 4, 1939. Originally called Port George VI, then Toronto Island Airport, we know it today as Toronto City Centre Airport. Of course the honourable record of the airport has been airbrushed out of history by the lefties of Hogtown.
Research into the plaque in the 'new' control tower has thrown up a historical mystery. I have written to The Beaver to see if they can solve it:

"Dear Beaver,

Here is a puzzle. In the control tower at Toronto City Centre Airport there is a plaque which says the following:

The Margaret R. Dunseith building was dedicated to Canada's first woman air traffic controller by the Honourable David Macdonald, Member of Parliament for Rosedale, on behalf of the Honourable Benoît Bouchard, Minister of Transport, on June 23, 1989.

It seems there is another claimant to the title:

Katherine MacLean Wood: Air Traffic Controller, Born Dunbarton, Scotland 1911. Died December 27, 2004. She emigrated to Canada with her family in 1930. She would become Canada's first female Air Traffic Controller.

Reference here.

I wonder if you can resolve this mystery and tell us more about these two pioneering women?

Finally I would like to pay tribute to the air traffic controllers at Toronto City Centre Airport, who are a fine body of men and women, doing a vital job with great skill, for which they receive little thanks."

We'll see what they have to say.
Hi to Brian in Edson, Alberta, PunchBuggy reader.

Hogtown City Limits XI

Now that the cycling season is underway me and my chums, the chaplain and Ron, are out and about, often visiting CYTZ, Toronto City Centre Airport. On a recent trip we bumped into George Lagogianes, reporting for CP24. When asked about about the airport he said it was "definitely needed."

Like Kevin Frankish, of City TV, who said "fantastic, fantastic" when flying from the airport - see PunchBuggy Passim - it is a pity these media types don't offer more public support to the airport, instead of letting the knockers and the lefty boroughmongers have it all their own way.
There is a plaque in the new control-tower building, which says "The Margaret R. Dunseith building was dedicated to Canada's first woman air traffic controller by the Honourable David Macdonald, Member of Parliament for Rosedale, on behalf of the Honourable Benoît Bouchard, Minister of Transport, on June 23, 1989." The air traffic controllers are a fine body of men and woman, doing a vital job and undeserving of the vilification from City Hall.
Now if the pestilential politicians want something useful to do why don't they fix up the eyesore of the Canada Malting Company silos - this is the sight that greets folk arriving at the airport - broken windows and dereliction - the important first impression of the city is of a place run by deadbeats.

Hogtown City Limits X

It has not been a good week for Toronto's "large imperfect" Mayor, David Miller. He has been booted off the Metrolinx Board by Provincial Premier Dalton McGuinty, who has shown "a growing impatience" with bloviating politicians more interested in fighting turf wars than making forward progress on transit plans. Sidekick and TTC chairman Adam Giambrone also got the chop.
So now it is the turn of the so-called experts, or Liberal bagmen, who will plan transit for the the province. Robert Pritchard, a law professor, has been appointed interim-CEO of Metrolinx which will run the GO transit commuter trains. One Steve Soloman writes to the Globe and Mail: "The appointment of Robert Prichard as interim CEO is somewhat alarming, as we're told he has no experience running a commuter rail service. His only qualification, it seems, is that he uses Toronto public transit."
In another development the Federal Government has undertaken to pay $1.7m for the border security officials at the City Centre Airport. Toronto City Centre Airport, CYTZ, attracted over 500,000 passengers in 2008. Porter Airlines is adding flights to Thunder Bay from June 26 and is ramping up the fleet of locally-built Bombardier Q400 turboprop aircraft from eight to eighteen. Despite implacable opposition from the anti-business Mayor and former hack Adam Vaughan (Ward 20, Trinity-Spadina) the airport is doing just fine.