The Issues
What's Happening in Our City
These aren't complaints. They're facts — and they affect every resident in Pickering.
Development Without Limits
1,700+ new units. One street. No plan.
The City of Pickering continues to approve large-scale residential developments without ensuring the infrastructure exists to support them. The most glaring example: a 1,700+ unit condo project approved for a street whose traffic, water, and sewer systems are already operating at or near capacity.
This isn't a theoretical concern. Residents on these streets already experience daily congestion, longer emergency response times, and school capacity issues. Adding thousands of new residents without a funded, timeline-specific infrastructure plan is not responsible growth — it's negligence dressed up as progress.
We're asking for a simple standard: no development approval without a matching infrastructure plan that's funded and scheduled. Build the roads, upgrade the schools, expand the services first — then add the residents.
Meetings You Can't Attend
Virtual-only. By design.
When Pickering moved council meetings to a virtual-only format, the stated reason was accessibility. But the practical effect has been the opposite.
In-person meetings serve a critical function that Zoom calls cannot: they allow residents to see each other. To count heads. To whisper to a neighbour and realize they share the same concern. To organize — spontaneously, organically, in the moment. Virtual meetings strip all of that away.
Each participant sits alone in front of a screen, unable to gauge the room, unable to coordinate, and often limited to a few minutes of controlled speaking time. It's a format that centralizes power and disperses opposition.
We're not against virtual participation — we're against virtual-only. Give residents both options. If the goal is truly accessibility, a hybrid model achieves that. If the goal is to make public opposition harder to organize, virtual-only is the tool.
Pickering deserves both.
Infrastructure Falling Behind
Growth without investment is a tax increase waiting to happen.
Pickering's infrastructure was designed for a smaller city. As population grows, every system gets pushed harder — and many are already at the breaking point.
Traffic: Major corridors like Liverpool Road, Kingston Road, and Bayly Street experience daily congestion that extends well beyond rush hour. New developments add thousands of daily vehicle trips with no corresponding road improvements.
Schools: Local schools are at or over capacity. Portables have become permanent fixtures. Class sizes are growing while resources stay flat.
Recreation & Services: Community centres, libraries, and parks are serving significantly more residents than they were built for. Wait times for programs are up. Facilities are aging.
Water & Wastewater: These systems have finite capacity. When they fail — or require expensive emergency upgrades — guess who pays?
The pattern is clear: development gets approved, the city collects development charges, and residents bear the long-term cost of an infrastructure that wasn't built to handle the load. We need infrastructure plans that are funded, scheduled, and completed before — not years after — new residents arrive.
Decisions Made Behind Closed Doors
If it's good for residents, why hide it?
Transparency shouldn't be something residents have to fight for — it should be the default. But in Pickering, too many important decisions happen with minimal public visibility.
Reports that should be easily accessible are buried on the city website. Meeting minutes are published late. The rationale for key planning decisions is often vague, generic, or unavailable entirely. Public consultation sessions are scheduled at inconvenient times with short notice, limiting meaningful participation.
When residents do speak up, it's often unclear how their input was considered — if it was considered at all. The feeling of being consulted but not heard is one of the fastest ways to destroy public trust.
We're pushing for a higher standard:
• Proactive communication — residents shouldn't have to dig for information about decisions that affect them • Accessible records — reports, minutes, and decision rationale should be easy to find and easy to understand • Genuine consultation — not a checkbox exercise, but a process where resident input visibly influences outcomes • Clear accountability — when residents raise concerns, they deserve a real response, not a form letter
Now You Know. What Will You Do?
Reading about these problems is a start. Showing up is what changes things.
Take Action Now