Pilot rescued from burning plane following crash at Cooking Lake Airport
Lindsay Morey
Sherwood Park News
May 29, 2025
A small plane crash Monday afternoon in Strathcona County’s southeast corner at Cooking Lake Airport ignited a grassfire and sent the pilot to hospital.
In a release Monday afternoon, May 26, Strathcona County RCMP said a small airplane crashed at the airport. Local police and Strathcona County Emergency Services arrived on scene around 2:15 p.m.
The crash resulted after the pilot was attempting to land and lost control of the privately registered small aircraft, a Cessna 185 equipped with amphibious floats, which can land on water or pavement. The pilot, who was returning from Fort McMurray around 1:45 p.m., attempted to land on runway 10, landing towards the east, when it veered left and came to rest in a ditch adjacent to the seaplane base road, just north of the runway.
The pilot, who was in his 70s, was assessed at the scene by EMS and flown to the University of Alberta Hospital by STARS Air Ambulance. AHS reported that the pilot was in serious condition, including some burns, but was stable.
“An aviation accident this close to home hits really hard, right in the gut. Our first thought is: is everyone ok? Is anyone hurt? Then you start wondering if it is someone you know. In this case, the pilot is a longstanding and much loved member of our local aviation community. He was hurt, but we are all thankful that he is going to be ok,” Cooking Lake Airport (CLA) board member Jim Johannsson told The News on Tuesday. “The pilot is still in hospital being treated for his injuries. He is in good spirits and looks forward to going home as soon as possible.”
The pilot escaped the burning plane thanks to the quick actions of Chris Jackson, the airport’s manager.
“(Chris) was working nearby when the accident occurred. He was onsite within seconds and pulled the pilot out of the burning aircraft. He didn’t hesitate to put himself in harm’s way to help. He’s a hero,” Johannsson recounted. “A medical doctor, who was just preparing to leave on a medical flight, rushed over to check on the pilot’s condition before the paramedics arrived.”
Whoever was at the airport also jumped into action.
“We are also deeply grateful to all the folks at the airport who rushed to help. There were other pilots, mechanics, business owners, and the staff & students from the Alberta College of Aeronautics. They all grabbed fire extinguishers and whatever they could to help contain the fire, as best they could, until the fire-fighters and paramedics arrived,” Johannsson said, adding the CLA board is grateful for the team work of local police, SCES, and STARS, who controlled the crash site.
Mounties described the grassfire as a result of the plane crash at the airport as “small.” Local fire crews were able to extinguish the grass fire within an hour. The fire response involved the deployment of one squad, a tanker truck, two brush trucks, a safety officer and a fire investigator.
“The aircraft was on fire and that extended into an adjacent ditch. The fire was quickly brought under control,” Strathcona County Emergency Services told The News in a statement on Monday.
The Transportation Safety Board is investigating.
“The entire airport community is praying for the pilot to make a full and speedy recovery,” the CLA board member noted.
— With files from Cindy Nguyen
Lindsay Morey
Sherwood Park News
May 29, 2025
A small plane crash Monday afternoon in Strathcona County’s southeast corner at Cooking Lake Airport ignited a grassfire and sent the pilot to hospital.
In a release Monday afternoon, May 26, Strathcona County RCMP said a small airplane crashed at the airport. Local police and Strathcona County Emergency Services arrived on scene around 2:15 p.m.
The crash resulted after the pilot was attempting to land and lost control of the privately registered small aircraft, a Cessna 185 equipped with amphibious floats, which can land on water or pavement. The pilot, who was returning from Fort McMurray around 1:45 p.m., attempted to land on runway 10, landing towards the east, when it veered left and came to rest in a ditch adjacent to the seaplane base road, just north of the runway.
The pilot, who was in his 70s, was assessed at the scene by EMS and flown to the University of Alberta Hospital by STARS Air Ambulance. AHS reported that the pilot was in serious condition, including some burns, but was stable.
“An aviation accident this close to home hits really hard, right in the gut. Our first thought is: is everyone ok? Is anyone hurt? Then you start wondering if it is someone you know. In this case, the pilot is a longstanding and much loved member of our local aviation community. He was hurt, but we are all thankful that he is going to be ok,” Cooking Lake Airport (CLA) board member Jim Johannsson told The News on Tuesday. “The pilot is still in hospital being treated for his injuries. He is in good spirits and looks forward to going home as soon as possible.”
The pilot escaped the burning plane thanks to the quick actions of Chris Jackson, the airport’s manager.
“(Chris) was working nearby when the accident occurred. He was onsite within seconds and pulled the pilot out of the burning aircraft. He didn’t hesitate to put himself in harm’s way to help. He’s a hero,” Johannsson recounted. “A medical doctor, who was just preparing to leave on a medical flight, rushed over to check on the pilot’s condition before the paramedics arrived.”
Whoever was at the airport also jumped into action.
“We are also deeply grateful to all the folks at the airport who rushed to help. There were other pilots, mechanics, business owners, and the staff & students from the Alberta College of Aeronautics. They all grabbed fire extinguishers and whatever they could to help contain the fire, as best they could, until the fire-fighters and paramedics arrived,” Johannsson said, adding the CLA board is grateful for the team work of local police, SCES, and STARS, who controlled the crash site.
Mounties described the grassfire as a result of the plane crash at the airport as “small.” Local fire crews were able to extinguish the grass fire within an hour. The fire response involved the deployment of one squad, a tanker truck, two brush trucks, a safety officer and a fire investigator.
“The aircraft was on fire and that extended into an adjacent ditch. The fire was quickly brought under control,” Strathcona County Emergency Services told The News in a statement on Monday.
The Transportation Safety Board is investigating.
“The entire airport community is praying for the pilot to make a full and speedy recovery,” the CLA board member noted.
— With files from Cindy Nguyen
Alberta remains flight desert for travellers with many airports still closed to international arrival
By Al Beeber
Lethbridge Herald
September 14, 2022
Ottawa is being called on to open all Alberta airports to international arrivals.
The group representing government, industry and business on Tuesday said “urgent action and fairness” is needed.
Jim Johannsson, a director of Cooking Lake Airport’s volunteer board, said in an email to The Herald on Tuesday that “we have been struggling for many months to reopen additional Alberta airports to international arrivals. Unfortunately, our federal government has been unresponsive and Alberta remains dead last, by a huge margin, to all other provinces in Canada for reopened airports.
“The Lethbridge airport has been partially reopened but only to CANPASS permit holders. Unfortunately, Ottawa halted processing of CANPASS permits two-and-a-half years ago so half of all issued permits have expired and you can’t yet get a new one.
“There is still no timeline when Lethbridge will be restored to its former AOE/15 status which would allow non-CANPASS permit holders to clear customs in Lethbridge. Meanwhile, 100 per cent of all reopened airports in B.C. have been restored to their AOE/15 status, said Johannsson of Cooking Lake which is the oldest operating public airport in Canada and the fifth busiest community airport in Alberta with 30,000 aircraft movements each year. It is located 15 kilometres east of Sherwood Park.
“Last May, requests to reopen two additional Alberta airports were denied. That same week Alberta was denied, the federal government reopened 254 docks and 20 additional airports in Ontario to international travellers,” said Johannsson.
The group in a release said “Alberta is the fourth largest province in Canada (by population) but lags far behind all other provinces in the reopening of airports to international arrivals. On a per capita basis, Alberta is dead last in airport reopenings, making it the most underserved region in the country.
The need is especially acute in the Edmonton Metropolitan region where there are currently no General Aviation (GA) airports open to international arrivals. The Edmonton Metropolitan region is the fifth largest in Canada.
Only five Alberta airports have been reopened to international arrivals with an AOE/15 level of service or greater. However, two of those AOE/15 airports (Coutts and Whetstone) are unmaintained grass strips that are only usable by small bush planes.”
Ottawa though reopened 27 airports in B.C., all with customs service at an AOE/15 or greater level of service.
Alberta Premier Jason Kenney is quoted in the release as saying “Ottawa has placed Alberta at the very bottom of its priority list for reopening airports to international arrivals and is yet another example of Albertans being disregarded by their federal government. Alberta’s aviation sector is an important economic driver. We need Ottawa to reopen our airports to international arrivals as quickly as possible.”
“Alberta businesses are just as important as those in other provinces including Ontario, B.C., and New Brunswick,” said Shauna Feth, president and CEO, Alberta Chambers of Commerce, in the release.
“Alberta businesses have waited patiently for Ottawa to reopen its’ most critical airports to international arrivals only to see the priority given to docks in Ontario. There needs to be a level playing field for Canada’s business community and we need our airports reopened.”
By Al Beeber
Lethbridge Herald
September 14, 2022
Ottawa is being called on to open all Alberta airports to international arrivals.
The group representing government, industry and business on Tuesday said “urgent action and fairness” is needed.
Jim Johannsson, a director of Cooking Lake Airport’s volunteer board, said in an email to The Herald on Tuesday that “we have been struggling for many months to reopen additional Alberta airports to international arrivals. Unfortunately, our federal government has been unresponsive and Alberta remains dead last, by a huge margin, to all other provinces in Canada for reopened airports.
“The Lethbridge airport has been partially reopened but only to CANPASS permit holders. Unfortunately, Ottawa halted processing of CANPASS permits two-and-a-half years ago so half of all issued permits have expired and you can’t yet get a new one.
“There is still no timeline when Lethbridge will be restored to its former AOE/15 status which would allow non-CANPASS permit holders to clear customs in Lethbridge. Meanwhile, 100 per cent of all reopened airports in B.C. have been restored to their AOE/15 status, said Johannsson of Cooking Lake which is the oldest operating public airport in Canada and the fifth busiest community airport in Alberta with 30,000 aircraft movements each year. It is located 15 kilometres east of Sherwood Park.
“Last May, requests to reopen two additional Alberta airports were denied. That same week Alberta was denied, the federal government reopened 254 docks and 20 additional airports in Ontario to international travellers,” said Johannsson.
The group in a release said “Alberta is the fourth largest province in Canada (by population) but lags far behind all other provinces in the reopening of airports to international arrivals. On a per capita basis, Alberta is dead last in airport reopenings, making it the most underserved region in the country.
The need is especially acute in the Edmonton Metropolitan region where there are currently no General Aviation (GA) airports open to international arrivals. The Edmonton Metropolitan region is the fifth largest in Canada.
Only five Alberta airports have been reopened to international arrivals with an AOE/15 level of service or greater. However, two of those AOE/15 airports (Coutts and Whetstone) are unmaintained grass strips that are only usable by small bush planes.”
Ottawa though reopened 27 airports in B.C., all with customs service at an AOE/15 or greater level of service.
Alberta Premier Jason Kenney is quoted in the release as saying “Ottawa has placed Alberta at the very bottom of its priority list for reopening airports to international arrivals and is yet another example of Albertans being disregarded by their federal government. Alberta’s aviation sector is an important economic driver. We need Ottawa to reopen our airports to international arrivals as quickly as possible.”
“Alberta businesses are just as important as those in other provinces including Ontario, B.C., and New Brunswick,” said Shauna Feth, president and CEO, Alberta Chambers of Commerce, in the release.
“Alberta businesses have waited patiently for Ottawa to reopen its’ most critical airports to international arrivals only to see the priority given to docks in Ontario. There needs to be a level playing field for Canada’s business community and we need our airports reopened.”
NEWS RELEASE SEPTEMBER 13, 2022
Alberta government, business and industry leaders call on Ottawa for action and fairness in reopening Alberta airports to international arrivals
Alberta is the most underserved province in Canada
Alberta government, business and industry leaders call on Ottawa for action and fairness in reopening Alberta airports to international arrivals
Alberta is the most underserved province in Canada
Edmonton, AB– Government, business, and industry leaders today called for urgent action and fairness from Ottawa in reopening Alberta airports to international arrivals.
Alberta is the fourth largest province in Canada (by population) but lags far behind all other provinces in the reopening of airports to international arrivals. On a per capita basis, Alberta is dead last in airport reopenings, making it the most underserved region in the country.
The need is especially acute in the Edmonton Metropolitain region where there are currently no General Aviation (GA) airports open to international arrivals. The Edmonton Metropolitain region is the fifth largest in Canada.
Only five Alberta airports have been reopened to international arrivals with an AOE/15 level of service or greater. However, two of those AOE/15 airports (Coutts and Whetstone) are unmaintained grass strips that are only usable by small bush planes.
In contrast, Ottawa reopened 27 airports in British Columbia and all of those are provided customs service at an AOE/15 level or greater. Ontario currently has a total of 48 airports reopened to international arrivals of which 43 have an AOE/15 or greater level of service. The regional differences are extreme and difficult to comprehend.
Last May, the Ministry of Public Safety Canada declined to reopen either of the two critical general aviation airports (Cooking Lake and Villeneuve) serving the Edmonton Metropolitain region. That same week, Ottawa announced the reopening of 254 small vessel sites (docks) and 20 additional airports for international arrivals in Ontario.
Alberta’s aviation community and a growing number of Alberta-based Members of Parliament have written to the Minister of Public Safety, Marcel Mendicino requesting Ottawa reopen at least two more Alberta airports to international arrivals, but there has been no action.
“Ottawa has placed Alberta at the very bottom of its priority list for reopening airports to international arrivals and is yet another example of Albertans being disregarded by their federal government ,” said Jason Kenney, Premier of Alberta. “Alberta’s aviation sector is an important economic driver. We need Ottawa to reopen our airports to international arrivals as quickly as possible.”
“Alberta businesses are just as important as Ontario, B.C., and New Brunswick businesses,” said Shauna Feth, President and CEO, Alberta Chambers of Commerce. “Alberta businesses have waited patiently for Ottawa to reopen its’ most critical airports to international arrivals only to see the priority given to docks in Ontario. There needs to be a level playing field for Canada’s business community and we need our airports reopened.”
Jim Johannsson, director Cooking Lake Airport said, “Alberta is home to more than 4,700 aircraft, the third largest concentration of aircraft in Canada. Yet we have the lowest number of reopened airports in Canada, on a per capita basis. The tiny province of New Brunswick has one tenth the number of aircraft as Alberta yet has more airports open to international arrivals than we do here. It’s not logical, and it’s not fair.
“Albertans are hard-working, pragmatic people with a strong belief in fair play. It is not unreasonable for Albertans to expect a level of service comparable to that currently available in other provinces,” said Matt Jeneroux, Member of Parliament, Edmonton Riverbend. “Indeed, reopening Alberta’s Cooking Lake and Villeneuve Airports would allow Alberta to catch up to the same number of airports currently open to international arrivals as New Brunswick. Surely, that is a reasonable request.”
International airports fall under the jurisdiction of the federal government. Public Safety Canada and the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) are solely responsible for reopening airports to international arrivals. The provinces have no authority on such matters.
Contacts:
Cooking Lake Airport Alberta Chambers of Commerce
Jim Johannsson Shauna Feth
(780) 920-9519 President and CEO
[email protected] (780) 425-4180
[email protected]
Office of the Premier of Alberta Office of MP Matt Jeneroux
Brock Harrison Edmonton Riverbend
(780) 999-7204 Matt Jeneroux
[email protected] (780) 495-4351
[email protected]
About Cooking Lake Airport
Founded in 1926, Cooking Lake Airport is the oldest operating public airport in all of Canada and the fifth busiest community airport in Alberta. Located just east of Edmonton, the airport serves as a general aviation airport for over 250 aircraft supporting business, search & rescue, flight training, and recreation. The airport handles approximately 30,000 aircraft movements each year. The airport is also a Canada Border Services Agency designated international airport (CANPASS).
About the Alberta Chambers of Commerce
Since 1937, the Alberta Chambers of Commerce (ACC) has worked to complement the advocacy, networking, and membership benefit efforts of local chambers members. As the leading voice on business issues, the Alberta Chambers of Commerce represents 116 community chambers of commerce, which in turn represent the business interests of over 24,000 members in all the Federal and Provincial electoral districts. The ACC also consists of over 80 corporate members, who support the efforts of both their community chamber of commerce and the ACC network.
Alberta is the fourth largest province in Canada (by population) but lags far behind all other provinces in the reopening of airports to international arrivals. On a per capita basis, Alberta is dead last in airport reopenings, making it the most underserved region in the country.
The need is especially acute in the Edmonton Metropolitain region where there are currently no General Aviation (GA) airports open to international arrivals. The Edmonton Metropolitain region is the fifth largest in Canada.
Only five Alberta airports have been reopened to international arrivals with an AOE/15 level of service or greater. However, two of those AOE/15 airports (Coutts and Whetstone) are unmaintained grass strips that are only usable by small bush planes.
In contrast, Ottawa reopened 27 airports in British Columbia and all of those are provided customs service at an AOE/15 level or greater. Ontario currently has a total of 48 airports reopened to international arrivals of which 43 have an AOE/15 or greater level of service. The regional differences are extreme and difficult to comprehend.
Last May, the Ministry of Public Safety Canada declined to reopen either of the two critical general aviation airports (Cooking Lake and Villeneuve) serving the Edmonton Metropolitain region. That same week, Ottawa announced the reopening of 254 small vessel sites (docks) and 20 additional airports for international arrivals in Ontario.
Alberta’s aviation community and a growing number of Alberta-based Members of Parliament have written to the Minister of Public Safety, Marcel Mendicino requesting Ottawa reopen at least two more Alberta airports to international arrivals, but there has been no action.
“Ottawa has placed Alberta at the very bottom of its priority list for reopening airports to international arrivals and is yet another example of Albertans being disregarded by their federal government ,” said Jason Kenney, Premier of Alberta. “Alberta’s aviation sector is an important economic driver. We need Ottawa to reopen our airports to international arrivals as quickly as possible.”
“Alberta businesses are just as important as Ontario, B.C., and New Brunswick businesses,” said Shauna Feth, President and CEO, Alberta Chambers of Commerce. “Alberta businesses have waited patiently for Ottawa to reopen its’ most critical airports to international arrivals only to see the priority given to docks in Ontario. There needs to be a level playing field for Canada’s business community and we need our airports reopened.”
Jim Johannsson, director Cooking Lake Airport said, “Alberta is home to more than 4,700 aircraft, the third largest concentration of aircraft in Canada. Yet we have the lowest number of reopened airports in Canada, on a per capita basis. The tiny province of New Brunswick has one tenth the number of aircraft as Alberta yet has more airports open to international arrivals than we do here. It’s not logical, and it’s not fair.
“Albertans are hard-working, pragmatic people with a strong belief in fair play. It is not unreasonable for Albertans to expect a level of service comparable to that currently available in other provinces,” said Matt Jeneroux, Member of Parliament, Edmonton Riverbend. “Indeed, reopening Alberta’s Cooking Lake and Villeneuve Airports would allow Alberta to catch up to the same number of airports currently open to international arrivals as New Brunswick. Surely, that is a reasonable request.”
International airports fall under the jurisdiction of the federal government. Public Safety Canada and the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) are solely responsible for reopening airports to international arrivals. The provinces have no authority on such matters.
Contacts:
Cooking Lake Airport Alberta Chambers of Commerce
Jim Johannsson Shauna Feth
(780) 920-9519 President and CEO
[email protected] (780) 425-4180
[email protected]
Office of the Premier of Alberta Office of MP Matt Jeneroux
Brock Harrison Edmonton Riverbend
(780) 999-7204 Matt Jeneroux
[email protected] (780) 495-4351
[email protected]
About Cooking Lake Airport
Founded in 1926, Cooking Lake Airport is the oldest operating public airport in all of Canada and the fifth busiest community airport in Alberta. Located just east of Edmonton, the airport serves as a general aviation airport for over 250 aircraft supporting business, search & rescue, flight training, and recreation. The airport handles approximately 30,000 aircraft movements each year. The airport is also a Canada Border Services Agency designated international airport (CANPASS).
About the Alberta Chambers of Commerce
Since 1937, the Alberta Chambers of Commerce (ACC) has worked to complement the advocacy, networking, and membership benefit efforts of local chambers members. As the leading voice on business issues, the Alberta Chambers of Commerce represents 116 community chambers of commerce, which in turn represent the business interests of over 24,000 members in all the Federal and Provincial electoral districts. The ACC also consists of over 80 corporate members, who support the efforts of both their community chamber of commerce and the ACC network.
First medical flight in Alberta marks 90 years as aviation historians find first patient
By Jill Croteau Global News
August 25, 2022
Watch the video here: Video
In 1932, the Fokker Universal C-FAHJ, embarked on it’s first ever medical flight. It was a plane with no navigation, no communication, and no GPS — only equipped with a compass and an old school map. It was equipped with floats.
It flew in and out of Cooking Lake Airport, the oldest operating airport in Canada and was a major staging point for bush pilots during the early pioneering days of aviation in Canada.
Jim Johannsson, a board member with Cooking Lake, said the plane was special.“It was made of metal tubing, fabric and plywood, and a little aluminum. Towards the front of the airplane, the pilot sat outside the airplane, higher than the passenger compartment and the passenger sat below and behind the pilot in a very tiny compartment used for passengers or freight,” Johannsson said.
The historic plane transported its very first patient 90 years ago this summer.
Gladys Hill was an expectant mother who was close to delivery. She and her husband Walter Hill, a pharmacist owner, were about to have their second baby and due to some complications, they needed to hitch a ride from their home in Fort McMurray to Edmonton.
Johannsson said the remarkable story deserves to be shared. “There is so much history here,” Johannsson said.
“Walter and Gladys Hill were running the pharmacy in Fort McMurray in 1932. They were starting a young family and they were advised from their doctor to travel to Edmonton for more advanced medical care.”
By Jill Croteau Global News
August 25, 2022
Watch the video here: Video
In 1932, the Fokker Universal C-FAHJ, embarked on it’s first ever medical flight. It was a plane with no navigation, no communication, and no GPS — only equipped with a compass and an old school map. It was equipped with floats.
It flew in and out of Cooking Lake Airport, the oldest operating airport in Canada and was a major staging point for bush pilots during the early pioneering days of aviation in Canada.
Jim Johannsson, a board member with Cooking Lake, said the plane was special.“It was made of metal tubing, fabric and plywood, and a little aluminum. Towards the front of the airplane, the pilot sat outside the airplane, higher than the passenger compartment and the passenger sat below and behind the pilot in a very tiny compartment used for passengers or freight,” Johannsson said.
The historic plane transported its very first patient 90 years ago this summer.
Gladys Hill was an expectant mother who was close to delivery. She and her husband Walter Hill, a pharmacist owner, were about to have their second baby and due to some complications, they needed to hitch a ride from their home in Fort McMurray to Edmonton.
Johannsson said the remarkable story deserves to be shared. “There is so much history here,” Johannsson said.
“Walter and Gladys Hill were running the pharmacy in Fort McMurray in 1932. They were starting a young family and they were advised from their doctor to travel to Edmonton for more advanced medical care.”
The flight was an eventful one.
“The flight was going well until they ran into bad weather,” Johannsson said, noting the pilot’s position exposed to the elements partially outside the fuselage. “Just when you didn’t think things could worse, the excitement started.
“Walter is in the back cargo area with Gladys and he yelled through peephole to the pilot that Gladys as starting to experience pains and could he hurry up. The pilot, Lewis Leigh, put the throttle to the wall and sped up the airplane, landing at the nearest dock at Cooking Lake and a young baby was born about 10 minutes after landing,” Johannsson said.
Historians with the Cooking Lake Airport spent time to track down the baby, hoping they would be fortunate enough to find him.
That “baby” is Ken Hill. The soon-to-be 90-year-old lives with his wife, Diane, in Calgary.
“The flight was going well until they ran into bad weather,” Johannsson said, noting the pilot’s position exposed to the elements partially outside the fuselage. “Just when you didn’t think things could worse, the excitement started.
“Walter is in the back cargo area with Gladys and he yelled through peephole to the pilot that Gladys as starting to experience pains and could he hurry up. The pilot, Lewis Leigh, put the throttle to the wall and sped up the airplane, landing at the nearest dock at Cooking Lake and a young baby was born about 10 minutes after landing,” Johannsson said.
Historians with the Cooking Lake Airport spent time to track down the baby, hoping they would be fortunate enough to find him.
That “baby” is Ken Hill. The soon-to-be 90-year-old lives with his wife, Diane, in Calgary.
“I was born nearing mid-afternoon on Aug. 29, 1932. And Aug. 29 happened to be on a Monday — this Monday is my birthday,” Hill said.
He likes to reminisce about his unusual welcome to the world, recalling stories he’s heard from his parents and reading about his own birth in the flying memoir And I Shall Fly written by pilot Lewis Leigh.
“He and Linny had a cabin on the south shore and he gunned the plane straight to the dock,” Hill said. “Dad and Linny, and Gertrude (Silke) and my mother went into the cabin. The ladies and my father delivered me. Because there was nothing to attach or tie off the cord, dad pulled a hair out of mother’s head and tied the cord.”
They had made the baby’s first clothes from pillow cases.
The Leigh family became a special part of the Hill family.
“Lewis became by godfather and Lynn (his wife) became my godmother, and I was named Kenneth Roland Leigh Hill,” Hill said.
Hill will have a special celebration for his 90th birthday on Aug. 29 with friends and family.
“I thought it was nice to be a little unique, which it was,” Hill said.
He likes to reminisce about his unusual welcome to the world, recalling stories he’s heard from his parents and reading about his own birth in the flying memoir And I Shall Fly written by pilot Lewis Leigh.
“He and Linny had a cabin on the south shore and he gunned the plane straight to the dock,” Hill said. “Dad and Linny, and Gertrude (Silke) and my mother went into the cabin. The ladies and my father delivered me. Because there was nothing to attach or tie off the cord, dad pulled a hair out of mother’s head and tied the cord.”
They had made the baby’s first clothes from pillow cases.
The Leigh family became a special part of the Hill family.
“Lewis became by godfather and Lynn (his wife) became my godmother, and I was named Kenneth Roland Leigh Hill,” Hill said.
Hill will have a special celebration for his 90th birthday on Aug. 29 with friends and family.
“I thought it was nice to be a little unique, which it was,” Hill said.
Local flight school aiming to land expanded pilot campus at Cooking Lake Airport
Sherwood Park News
February 22, 2022
It’s time to take to the skies.
Cooking Lake Aviation, a local flying school, has some big plans for future expansion. During the most recent council priorities committee meeting on Feb. 8, the company presented elected officials with a partnership proposal to expand and upgrade the Cooking Lake Airport to become the airport’s anchor tenant.
“We want to be here,” said Lawrence Lau, general manager with Cooking Lake Aviation. “From a student accessibility standpoint, Strathcona County is our top prospect.”
Expansion plans timelines have increased due to a global storage of pilots. Staffing storages have already forced WestJet and Air Canada to cut certain routes, and this problem has been made worse by the pandemic with many pilots opting to retire early, Lau noted. Training and paying for airtime have also become more expensive. The Air Transport Association of Canada predicts that the country will be short 6,000 pilots in five years’ time.
To respond to the surging demand, the company is looking to develop a post-secondary aviation campus on two acres of land at the Cooking Lake Airport in partnership with Solomon College. Another agreement has been signed with Northern Lights College from Dawson Creek, B.C. to offer an aircraft mechanic program in 2023. The company is also aiming to offer a one-year cabin safety certificate by 2025.
Currently, the flight school operates at the local airport out of a small hanger with limited amenities, training between 50 to 100 students, but its expansion plans could accommodate upwards of 300.
With a maximum investment of $5 million, the goal is to have a 20,000 square-foot campus building completed by September 2023.
The company views Cooking Lake Airport as its preferred location because it’s the sixth busiest airport in the province (excluding Edmonton and Calgary), attracting 30,000 annual aircraft movements, and its proximity to the Edmonton metropolitan area makes it more affordable for students, and it’s close to the Beaver Hill area, which is the designated practice flying space east of Edmonton.
The airport is currently run by a non-profit something the company would like to see changed. “The airport board has been able to do a lot with very little,” Lau said.
The Villeneuve Airport, which is publicly funded, contributes to almost $62 million in economic output annually. “There is an opportunity at the Cooking Lake Airport to do the same,” Lau hinted.
The company outlined that the both the runway and taxiway would need to be extended, as they reduce safety, especially when it’s icy in in the winter.
In order to establish the pilot campus, infrastructure challenges, such as water, sewage, improved internet access, airport maintenance, and road access would also have to be resolved. A feasibility study overseen by WSP Engineering estimated it could cost $5 million to $10 million to extend a water and sewage line out the airport from the nearby hamlet. Lau noted these improvements would attract other businesses to the airport such as air ambulances, patrols, surveys, and car rental companies.
“We have to overcome these challenges so that we can become more accessible for more people,” he stated.
In addition to those requests, the company said it would also support the county to modify the airport ownership structure to allow it to attract provincial and federal funding. “We are happy to put our money where our mouth is and start this project. What we would realistically like is some sort of support and the change in ownership structure so that the airport could be granted government funding that would go a long way to provide us that confidence with our investment on that long-term project,” Lau said.
On that last note, Ward 7 Coun. Glen Lawrence made such notice of motion previously, requesting a feasibility study on the procurement of Cooking Lake Airport. “This is fantastic. I hope that we can move forward and work together with you and I’m curious to see what will come out of the plan that we’re working on now,” Lawrence said, adding this opportunity should be on the radar of the county’s Economic Development and Tourism Department.
Mayor Rod Frank noted the next step is to review the study coming back to council about the economic benefits and financial impacts.
The company invited council to visit its operations at the airport on May 4.
Sherwood Park News
February 22, 2022
It’s time to take to the skies.
Cooking Lake Aviation, a local flying school, has some big plans for future expansion. During the most recent council priorities committee meeting on Feb. 8, the company presented elected officials with a partnership proposal to expand and upgrade the Cooking Lake Airport to become the airport’s anchor tenant.
“We want to be here,” said Lawrence Lau, general manager with Cooking Lake Aviation. “From a student accessibility standpoint, Strathcona County is our top prospect.”
Expansion plans timelines have increased due to a global storage of pilots. Staffing storages have already forced WestJet and Air Canada to cut certain routes, and this problem has been made worse by the pandemic with many pilots opting to retire early, Lau noted. Training and paying for airtime have also become more expensive. The Air Transport Association of Canada predicts that the country will be short 6,000 pilots in five years’ time.
To respond to the surging demand, the company is looking to develop a post-secondary aviation campus on two acres of land at the Cooking Lake Airport in partnership with Solomon College. Another agreement has been signed with Northern Lights College from Dawson Creek, B.C. to offer an aircraft mechanic program in 2023. The company is also aiming to offer a one-year cabin safety certificate by 2025.
Currently, the flight school operates at the local airport out of a small hanger with limited amenities, training between 50 to 100 students, but its expansion plans could accommodate upwards of 300.
With a maximum investment of $5 million, the goal is to have a 20,000 square-foot campus building completed by September 2023.
The company views Cooking Lake Airport as its preferred location because it’s the sixth busiest airport in the province (excluding Edmonton and Calgary), attracting 30,000 annual aircraft movements, and its proximity to the Edmonton metropolitan area makes it more affordable for students, and it’s close to the Beaver Hill area, which is the designated practice flying space east of Edmonton.
The airport is currently run by a non-profit something the company would like to see changed. “The airport board has been able to do a lot with very little,” Lau said.
The Villeneuve Airport, which is publicly funded, contributes to almost $62 million in economic output annually. “There is an opportunity at the Cooking Lake Airport to do the same,” Lau hinted.
The company outlined that the both the runway and taxiway would need to be extended, as they reduce safety, especially when it’s icy in in the winter.
In order to establish the pilot campus, infrastructure challenges, such as water, sewage, improved internet access, airport maintenance, and road access would also have to be resolved. A feasibility study overseen by WSP Engineering estimated it could cost $5 million to $10 million to extend a water and sewage line out the airport from the nearby hamlet. Lau noted these improvements would attract other businesses to the airport such as air ambulances, patrols, surveys, and car rental companies.
“We have to overcome these challenges so that we can become more accessible for more people,” he stated.
In addition to those requests, the company said it would also support the county to modify the airport ownership structure to allow it to attract provincial and federal funding. “We are happy to put our money where our mouth is and start this project. What we would realistically like is some sort of support and the change in ownership structure so that the airport could be granted government funding that would go a long way to provide us that confidence with our investment on that long-term project,” Lau said.
On that last note, Ward 7 Coun. Glen Lawrence made such notice of motion previously, requesting a feasibility study on the procurement of Cooking Lake Airport. “This is fantastic. I hope that we can move forward and work together with you and I’m curious to see what will come out of the plan that we’re working on now,” Lawrence said, adding this opportunity should be on the radar of the county’s Economic Development and Tourism Department.
Mayor Rod Frank noted the next step is to review the study coming back to council about the economic benefits and financial impacts.
The company invited council to visit its operations at the airport on May 4.
Freedom Air breaking barriers in mid-air
Sherwood Park News
June 7, 2019
Freedom Air gives wings to those with limited mobility.
Backed by the slogan “The sky is not the limit”, Sherwood Park-based Freedom Air is one of the only flight schools in Canada that offers hand control training, which allows people who don’t have the use of their legs to get into the cockpit and learn to fly. The controls are designed to allow pilots to use the throttle, rudder, and brake with one hand, while the other works the ailerons and elevator. The controller is specifically designed for use by pilots unable to properly actuate the rudder and brake controlling pedals with their feet.
Sherwood Park News
June 7, 2019
Freedom Air gives wings to those with limited mobility.
Backed by the slogan “The sky is not the limit”, Sherwood Park-based Freedom Air is one of the only flight schools in Canada that offers hand control training, which allows people who don’t have the use of their legs to get into the cockpit and learn to fly. The controls are designed to allow pilots to use the throttle, rudder, and brake with one hand, while the other works the ailerons and elevator. The controller is specifically designed for use by pilots unable to properly actuate the rudder and brake controlling pedals with their feet.
The owner and operator of Freedom Air, Mark Logan and a student reach for the sky from the inside of the cockpit. Freedom Air offers hand control training, which allows students with limited mobility to pilot independently. The company is based in Sherwood Park.
The owner and operator of Freedom Air, Mark Logan, was inspired to develop the unique program to teach paraplegics to learn how to fly following an accident that left him without the use of his left arm. With surgery and therapy he was able to regain some movement, but the injury left a lasting impact.
“The injury really inspired me to want to help the disabled learned to fly,” Logan explained. “I love helping people. I wanted to take my passion for flying and make it accessible for all sorts of people.”
Freedom Air offers a wide variety of aviation training including visual flight rule training, recreational pilot licensing, privet pilot licensing, commercial licensing as well as night rating and tours through the international airport. There are three aircrafts in the Freedom Air fleet, located at Cooking Lake Airport, situated just south of Ardrossan.
The flight school is aimed at inspiring and teaching future pilots of all abilities and backgrounds the intricacies of flying and to help them to achieve their goals. The company personalizes the self-paced lessons to meet the time and needs of the individual pilot. Ranked as a Class 2 instructor, Logan has tracked 3,100 hours, with 2150 hours as instructor time since 2011. So far, two students have already gone on solo trips and there is still more to come.
Mike Reimer has been a student with Freedom Air for over three years, but a pilot for most of his life. After an accident confined him to a wheelchair, Freedom Air helped him get back into the cockpit.
“It’s fantastic. I’m really happy to be back in the air,” Reimer told The News. “The hand control system is the only way to get me back in the cockpit. It’s not my preferred system of operation, but one step at a time I am getting back into flying.”
Freedom Air will be hosting an open house on Saturday, June 22, 2019 at the Cooking Lake Airport, hangar 28, located at 51401 Range Road 221 in Sherwood Park. Any and all aviation enthusiasts are welcome to come out and experience the marvels of flight first hand. The open house will feature a display of the schools aircrafts, tours of the city, a barbecue and activities for children. The open house runs from 8 a.m to 3 p.m. For more information visit freedomair.ca.
The owner and operator of Freedom Air, Mark Logan, was inspired to develop the unique program to teach paraplegics to learn how to fly following an accident that left him without the use of his left arm. With surgery and therapy he was able to regain some movement, but the injury left a lasting impact.
“The injury really inspired me to want to help the disabled learned to fly,” Logan explained. “I love helping people. I wanted to take my passion for flying and make it accessible for all sorts of people.”
Freedom Air offers a wide variety of aviation training including visual flight rule training, recreational pilot licensing, privet pilot licensing, commercial licensing as well as night rating and tours through the international airport. There are three aircrafts in the Freedom Air fleet, located at Cooking Lake Airport, situated just south of Ardrossan.
The flight school is aimed at inspiring and teaching future pilots of all abilities and backgrounds the intricacies of flying and to help them to achieve their goals. The company personalizes the self-paced lessons to meet the time and needs of the individual pilot. Ranked as a Class 2 instructor, Logan has tracked 3,100 hours, with 2150 hours as instructor time since 2011. So far, two students have already gone on solo trips and there is still more to come.
Mike Reimer has been a student with Freedom Air for over three years, but a pilot for most of his life. After an accident confined him to a wheelchair, Freedom Air helped him get back into the cockpit.
“It’s fantastic. I’m really happy to be back in the air,” Reimer told The News. “The hand control system is the only way to get me back in the cockpit. It’s not my preferred system of operation, but one step at a time I am getting back into flying.”
Freedom Air will be hosting an open house on Saturday, June 22, 2019 at the Cooking Lake Airport, hangar 28, located at 51401 Range Road 221 in Sherwood Park. Any and all aviation enthusiasts are welcome to come out and experience the marvels of flight first hand. The open house will feature a display of the schools aircrafts, tours of the city, a barbecue and activities for children. The open house runs from 8 a.m to 3 p.m. For more information visit freedomair.ca.
Airport continues fight on taxes
Sherwood Park News
Guest column by Jim Johannsson
August 10, 2018
How would you feel if your family was paying twice the property taxes as the family living in an identical house down the street? To add insult to injury, the County clears the snow and maintains the road at their end of the street but leaves you on your own to look after the road at your end. That’s how the volunteers who operate the Cooking Lake Airport feel - doubly taxed, and no municipal services.
We’re all happy to pay our share, but when the tax burden and allocation of municipal services aren’t equitable we have a problem. Ignoring the inequity or trying to cover it up doesn’t make it go away, it just makes people angry.
In 2015, an independent Assessment Review Board acknowledged that the property taxes at the Cooking Lake Airport were not equitable with the County-owned Warren Thomas Airport. Despite the inequity, the Board ruled the County has the statutory right to collect the excessive taxes. Sure, it’s legal, but that doesn’t make it fair.
County staff argue that the Cooking Lake Airport ownership structure is different so it isn’t eligible for the same tax exemptions as Warren Thomas. And worse, providing any kind of concession to the airport would set a precedent that would open the floodgates for similar requests. That might be a legitimate concern if it weren’t for the fact that the precedent has already been established by the Warren Thomas Airport and there are no other significant public airports lurking around the county.
Property taxes are complicated and County staff should be commended for getting it right most of the time. However, they have failed to come up with a reasonable and equitable solution for the Cooking Lake Airport.
The property assessment and taxation process is complex, so it is subject to rigid controls and regulations. That’s a good thing. But our lawmakers fully expected there would be unique situations that the legislation didn’t contemplate. That’s why they granted Council the authority to do the right thing for those rare, but inevitable inequities.
Council does not have the authority to alter a tax assessment, but it does have the authority to reduce, defer, or refund taxes if it determines it is equitable to do so. Council can also mitigate the inequity by contributing towards the operation or rehabilitation of the airport’s public-use infrastructure. There are many solutions that could work.
Unfortunately, and as much as I hate to say it, I don’t believe County staff want to find a solution to this inequity and have taken up a vindictive stance towards the airport.
I don’t envy Council. On one side they have taxpayers who are very angry about paying a double dose of taxes for the privilege of operating the County’s main public airport. On the other side they’ve got County staff working to avoid treating Cooking Lake Airport the same as the Warren Thomas Airport.
From a practical perspective Cooking Lake is the County’s main public airport, serving 87 per cent of its public aeronautical transportation needs – and it’s a non-profit, operated and funded entirely by volunteers. It’s an international airport, and it’s home to two Transport Canada approved flight training schools, five aircraft maintenance shops, and a host of search and rescue, medical transport, pipeline patrol, aerial survey, and recreational aircraft. The airport has been serving the community for 92 years and is actually the oldest operating public airport in all of Canada.
As Canada’s longest serving public airport it deserves a fair and unbiased hearing of these issues before Council.
Jim Johannsson is a volunteer and past-president with the Cooking Lake Airport, and has acted as the airport’s representative when presenting to council on the issue of tax equity and a proposed runway extension. Johannsson’s views and opinions stated within this column are his own.
Sherwood Park News
Guest column by Jim Johannsson
August 10, 2018
How would you feel if your family was paying twice the property taxes as the family living in an identical house down the street? To add insult to injury, the County clears the snow and maintains the road at their end of the street but leaves you on your own to look after the road at your end. That’s how the volunteers who operate the Cooking Lake Airport feel - doubly taxed, and no municipal services.
We’re all happy to pay our share, but when the tax burden and allocation of municipal services aren’t equitable we have a problem. Ignoring the inequity or trying to cover it up doesn’t make it go away, it just makes people angry.
In 2015, an independent Assessment Review Board acknowledged that the property taxes at the Cooking Lake Airport were not equitable with the County-owned Warren Thomas Airport. Despite the inequity, the Board ruled the County has the statutory right to collect the excessive taxes. Sure, it’s legal, but that doesn’t make it fair.
County staff argue that the Cooking Lake Airport ownership structure is different so it isn’t eligible for the same tax exemptions as Warren Thomas. And worse, providing any kind of concession to the airport would set a precedent that would open the floodgates for similar requests. That might be a legitimate concern if it weren’t for the fact that the precedent has already been established by the Warren Thomas Airport and there are no other significant public airports lurking around the county.
Property taxes are complicated and County staff should be commended for getting it right most of the time. However, they have failed to come up with a reasonable and equitable solution for the Cooking Lake Airport.
The property assessment and taxation process is complex, so it is subject to rigid controls and regulations. That’s a good thing. But our lawmakers fully expected there would be unique situations that the legislation didn’t contemplate. That’s why they granted Council the authority to do the right thing for those rare, but inevitable inequities.
Council does not have the authority to alter a tax assessment, but it does have the authority to reduce, defer, or refund taxes if it determines it is equitable to do so. Council can also mitigate the inequity by contributing towards the operation or rehabilitation of the airport’s public-use infrastructure. There are many solutions that could work.
Unfortunately, and as much as I hate to say it, I don’t believe County staff want to find a solution to this inequity and have taken up a vindictive stance towards the airport.
I don’t envy Council. On one side they have taxpayers who are very angry about paying a double dose of taxes for the privilege of operating the County’s main public airport. On the other side they’ve got County staff working to avoid treating Cooking Lake Airport the same as the Warren Thomas Airport.
From a practical perspective Cooking Lake is the County’s main public airport, serving 87 per cent of its public aeronautical transportation needs – and it’s a non-profit, operated and funded entirely by volunteers. It’s an international airport, and it’s home to two Transport Canada approved flight training schools, five aircraft maintenance shops, and a host of search and rescue, medical transport, pipeline patrol, aerial survey, and recreational aircraft. The airport has been serving the community for 92 years and is actually the oldest operating public airport in all of Canada.
As Canada’s longest serving public airport it deserves a fair and unbiased hearing of these issues before Council.
Jim Johannsson is a volunteer and past-president with the Cooking Lake Airport, and has acted as the airport’s representative when presenting to council on the issue of tax equity and a proposed runway extension. Johannsson’s views and opinions stated within this column are his own.
Cooking Lake Airport seeks to build runway add-on
Fortsaskonline
21 July 2018
Cooking Lake Airport is hoping for provincial funding for a runway extension.
Strathcona County council passed a motion to support the airport's mission for funding in the form of a written letter to the appropriate parties.
"We're really grateful for that step by council," said Jim Johannsson, past president of the Cooking Lake Airport Condominium Board. "It's not a commitment for funding, but it's certainly a far cry better than what we've seen from the previous mayor and councils of the past."
An expansion comes with a price tag of about $3.3 million. In the initial plan, about $1.625 million would be paid by the province, Strathcona County would be asked for about $837,000.
The board has been seeking funding for the airport since 2015 and has sought research on the possible benefits of expansion.
"The business case shows that a modest runway expansion would create an incremental GDP contribution of $319 million over the ten-year study period, which is quite impressive for a relatively small investment," said Johannsson.
The Cooking Lake Airport sees about 26,000 arrivals and departures each year. This accounts for about 87 percent of the total public demand for aviation services in Strathcona County, making Cooking Lake Airport the largest airport in the county and the sixth busiest in the province.
"There's a unique thing about airports in that a lot of commercial aviation operators are not allowed to operate their airplanes on runways less than 3500 ft. for insurance and liability reasons," Johannsson explained.
The runway at Cooking Lake Airport is currently 3000 ft. In comparison, the Josephburg Airport, which sees only about 13 percent of the county's aviation traffic, has a 4500 ft. runway.
"Cooking Lake Airport been serving the County for a very long time, totally on the backs of volunteers who are happy to do it. We'd really like to see the county step up and maybe share some of that burden."
Though council did not commit to funding some of the venture itself, the idea is not off the table.
Fortsaskonline
21 July 2018
Cooking Lake Airport is hoping for provincial funding for a runway extension.
Strathcona County council passed a motion to support the airport's mission for funding in the form of a written letter to the appropriate parties.
"We're really grateful for that step by council," said Jim Johannsson, past president of the Cooking Lake Airport Condominium Board. "It's not a commitment for funding, but it's certainly a far cry better than what we've seen from the previous mayor and councils of the past."
An expansion comes with a price tag of about $3.3 million. In the initial plan, about $1.625 million would be paid by the province, Strathcona County would be asked for about $837,000.
The board has been seeking funding for the airport since 2015 and has sought research on the possible benefits of expansion.
"The business case shows that a modest runway expansion would create an incremental GDP contribution of $319 million over the ten-year study period, which is quite impressive for a relatively small investment," said Johannsson.
The Cooking Lake Airport sees about 26,000 arrivals and departures each year. This accounts for about 87 percent of the total public demand for aviation services in Strathcona County, making Cooking Lake Airport the largest airport in the county and the sixth busiest in the province.
"There's a unique thing about airports in that a lot of commercial aviation operators are not allowed to operate their airplanes on runways less than 3500 ft. for insurance and liability reasons," Johannsson explained.
The runway at Cooking Lake Airport is currently 3000 ft. In comparison, the Josephburg Airport, which sees only about 13 percent of the county's aviation traffic, has a 4500 ft. runway.
"Cooking Lake Airport been serving the County for a very long time, totally on the backs of volunteers who are happy to do it. We'd really like to see the county step up and maybe share some of that burden."
Though council did not commit to funding some of the venture itself, the idea is not off the table.
A 10-year-old battle for tax equity between local airport facilities continues to be fought.
Currently, the volunteer-run Cooking Lake Airport in southern Strathcona County, close to Highway 14 and Anthony Henday Drive, accounts for 87 per cent of all Strathcona aeronautical traffic on an annual basis, supporting 26,000 aircraft movements per year, or more than 70 per day.
Conversely, the county-owned Warren Thomas Aerodrome hosts only 4,000 aircraft movements per year, accounting for only 13 per cent of local aeronautic traffic.
Yet, the tax spread is a far cry from equitable.
While a 3,000-square-foot hangar at the Cooking Lake Airport sees property taxes of $3,950 per year, a comparable structure at Warren Thomas is taxed $2,261 per year. Additionally, airport user fees are higher at Cooking Lake ($1,160 per year) than at Warren Thomas ($775 per year).
“We’re probably sounding like a broken record,” said Cooking Lake facility president Jim Johannsson. “We’ve been coming to council since about 2008 to try and address the issue.”
Because the Cooking Lake Airport is a non-profit facility, the group cannot legally operate at a deficit, meaning there has to be a net-zero cost recovery on user fees. However, according to Johannsson, the Warren Thomas Aerodrome is forecast for a $65,000 direct operating loss in 2018.
“That doesn’t include the county services that are provided and not tagged to the airport things like snow removal... pavement repair and that sort of thing,” he explained.
“We don’t have that luxury at Cooking Lake, so we have to actually charge higher user fees so we can recover all of our property maintenance costs. And then on top of that, the county charges us almost double the property taxes than we see at Warren Thomas.”
While Johannsson said he didn’t want to turn the debate into an “adversarial discussion,” he added it’s important to note where Cooking Lake users are coming from in their frustration over high property taxes and a lack of municipal services.
Presently, the county collects an estimated $250,000 in property taxes from the Cooking Lake facility each year.
“We’re not saying that the taxes or the assessments at Cooking Lake are inaccurate or incorrect, we’re just saying that the resulting taxes relative to the services are hugely unfair,” Johannsson said.
Currently, the volunteer-run Cooking Lake Airport in southern Strathcona County, close to Highway 14 and Anthony Henday Drive, accounts for 87 per cent of all Strathcona aeronautical traffic on an annual basis, supporting 26,000 aircraft movements per year, or more than 70 per day.
Conversely, the county-owned Warren Thomas Aerodrome hosts only 4,000 aircraft movements per year, accounting for only 13 per cent of local aeronautic traffic.
Yet, the tax spread is a far cry from equitable.
While a 3,000-square-foot hangar at the Cooking Lake Airport sees property taxes of $3,950 per year, a comparable structure at Warren Thomas is taxed $2,261 per year. Additionally, airport user fees are higher at Cooking Lake ($1,160 per year) than at Warren Thomas ($775 per year).
“We’re probably sounding like a broken record,” said Cooking Lake facility president Jim Johannsson. “We’ve been coming to council since about 2008 to try and address the issue.”
Because the Cooking Lake Airport is a non-profit facility, the group cannot legally operate at a deficit, meaning there has to be a net-zero cost recovery on user fees. However, according to Johannsson, the Warren Thomas Aerodrome is forecast for a $65,000 direct operating loss in 2018.
“That doesn’t include the county services that are provided and not tagged to the airport things like snow removal... pavement repair and that sort of thing,” he explained.
“We don’t have that luxury at Cooking Lake, so we have to actually charge higher user fees so we can recover all of our property maintenance costs. And then on top of that, the county charges us almost double the property taxes than we see at Warren Thomas.”
While Johannsson said he didn’t want to turn the debate into an “adversarial discussion,” he added it’s important to note where Cooking Lake users are coming from in their frustration over high property taxes and a lack of municipal services.
Presently, the county collects an estimated $250,000 in property taxes from the Cooking Lake facility each year.
“We’re not saying that the taxes or the assessments at Cooking Lake are inaccurate or incorrect, we’re just saying that the resulting taxes relative to the services are hugely unfair,” Johannsson said.
Runway extensions at the Cooking Lake Airport could increase the facility’s GDP contribution by more than 3,000 per cent, according to a recent report but it’ll come at a cost of more than $3 million.
President of the volunteer-led airport, Jim Johannsson said the group is seeking governmental support in repaving runways and taxiways, built in 1983, adding the project would prove an “ideal time” to extend the airport runway, as well.
Currently at 3,000 feet, large commercial aircraft are unable to use the Cooking Lake Airport due to a minimum requirement of a 3,500-foot runway; as such, Johannsson pitched a 1,000-foot runway extension.
“That will bring some slightly different users to the airport, meaning more commercial traffic (and) slightly larger airplanes,” he explained, adding: “When you look around the province of Alberta, you look at airports like Athabasca, St. Paul, Camrose, Vegreville, Bonnyville — they all have runways that have been extended beyond the original 3,000 feet.”
Referring to regional economic benefits as “quite substantial,” Johannsson claimed a repaving and runway expansion at the local facility would grow the current GDP contribution from $9.85 million to $319 million, based on a 2017 report.
“If you look at the Cooking Lake Airport today... there are about half-a-dozen businesses that employ 33 to 35 people, depending on the time of year,” he said, adding an expanded runway would help attract more business.
Johannsson stated the airport has received letters of interest from aviation-related companies, such as airplane painting and maintenance outfits, interested in relocating to Cooking Lake, should a longer runway be built.
“We even had a restaurant that said, once we got more activity and more people out there, they could see a restaurant being viable near the airport,” he added.
Such an expansion, though, comes with a heavy price tag of $3.3 million — $1.625 million of which would be paid by the province, if approved, while Strathcona County and the airport would each take on an $837,000 share.
No commitment has been made by the province to date, although Johannsson said the group has a meeting set up with Transportation Minister Brian Mason to further its cause. The county has also not committed to funding the expansion.
While Strathcona money would be on the line, Johannsson claimed the municipality would recover 100-per-cent of its investment within seven years of the extension being built, thereafter reaching a 178-per-cent recovery by Year 10.
“Today, the county generates about $250,000 a year in property taxes from the airport... By Year 10, it’s about another $220,000 in property taxes,” Johannsson said, noting that would result in a total of around $470,000 per year in county intake.
As the Cooking Lake Airport is volunteer-run and not publicly owned by Strathcona County, Johannsson stated: “It’s always been net cash-flow positive for the county. The county doesn’t actually spend any money at Cooking Lake Airport in aviation services, like it does at Warren Thomas. This is basically just free money for the county.”
The municipally-owned Warren Thomas Aerodrome sees around 4,000 aircraft movements a year, while the non-profit Cooking Lake facility hosts around 26,000 airport movements per year, accounting for 87 per cent of public aeronautical traffic in Strathcona County.
Additionally, the Cooking Lake Airport is the only international facility in the county, one of only 10 in Alberta.
“There are actually more aircraft at Cooking Lake than there are at the Red Deer and Lethbridge airports combined.”
Employment boost
The creation of full-time equivalent jobs is expected to skyrocket following an expanded runway at the facility, as well, Johannsson said, citing a rise of 113 positions within five years, up to 195 by Year 10.
The majority of new jobs would come in the form of professional pilots, while a smaller percentage is anticipated to be spread amongst industries such as flight training, restaurants, paint and upholstery, avionics, and engine and aircraft maintenance.
“These are all high-value, highly-skilled types of jobs,” Johannsson said.
He added such jobs would not be “transient,” and that “these are the types of jobs that once a company is set up operationally, they tend to stay there for a while.
President of the volunteer-led airport, Jim Johannsson said the group is seeking governmental support in repaving runways and taxiways, built in 1983, adding the project would prove an “ideal time” to extend the airport runway, as well.
Currently at 3,000 feet, large commercial aircraft are unable to use the Cooking Lake Airport due to a minimum requirement of a 3,500-foot runway; as such, Johannsson pitched a 1,000-foot runway extension.
“That will bring some slightly different users to the airport, meaning more commercial traffic (and) slightly larger airplanes,” he explained, adding: “When you look around the province of Alberta, you look at airports like Athabasca, St. Paul, Camrose, Vegreville, Bonnyville — they all have runways that have been extended beyond the original 3,000 feet.”
Referring to regional economic benefits as “quite substantial,” Johannsson claimed a repaving and runway expansion at the local facility would grow the current GDP contribution from $9.85 million to $319 million, based on a 2017 report.
“If you look at the Cooking Lake Airport today... there are about half-a-dozen businesses that employ 33 to 35 people, depending on the time of year,” he said, adding an expanded runway would help attract more business.
Johannsson stated the airport has received letters of interest from aviation-related companies, such as airplane painting and maintenance outfits, interested in relocating to Cooking Lake, should a longer runway be built.
“We even had a restaurant that said, once we got more activity and more people out there, they could see a restaurant being viable near the airport,” he added.
Such an expansion, though, comes with a heavy price tag of $3.3 million — $1.625 million of which would be paid by the province, if approved, while Strathcona County and the airport would each take on an $837,000 share.
No commitment has been made by the province to date, although Johannsson said the group has a meeting set up with Transportation Minister Brian Mason to further its cause. The county has also not committed to funding the expansion.
While Strathcona money would be on the line, Johannsson claimed the municipality would recover 100-per-cent of its investment within seven years of the extension being built, thereafter reaching a 178-per-cent recovery by Year 10.
“Today, the county generates about $250,000 a year in property taxes from the airport... By Year 10, it’s about another $220,000 in property taxes,” Johannsson said, noting that would result in a total of around $470,000 per year in county intake.
As the Cooking Lake Airport is volunteer-run and not publicly owned by Strathcona County, Johannsson stated: “It’s always been net cash-flow positive for the county. The county doesn’t actually spend any money at Cooking Lake Airport in aviation services, like it does at Warren Thomas. This is basically just free money for the county.”
The municipally-owned Warren Thomas Aerodrome sees around 4,000 aircraft movements a year, while the non-profit Cooking Lake facility hosts around 26,000 airport movements per year, accounting for 87 per cent of public aeronautical traffic in Strathcona County.
Additionally, the Cooking Lake Airport is the only international facility in the county, one of only 10 in Alberta.
“There are actually more aircraft at Cooking Lake than there are at the Red Deer and Lethbridge airports combined.”
Employment boost
The creation of full-time equivalent jobs is expected to skyrocket following an expanded runway at the facility, as well, Johannsson said, citing a rise of 113 positions within five years, up to 195 by Year 10.
The majority of new jobs would come in the form of professional pilots, while a smaller percentage is anticipated to be spread amongst industries such as flight training, restaurants, paint and upholstery, avionics, and engine and aircraft maintenance.
“These are all high-value, highly-skilled types of jobs,” Johannsson said.
He added such jobs would not be “transient,” and that “these are the types of jobs that once a company is set up operationally, they tend to stay there for a while.
Opinion: CASARA Search and Rescue at Cooking Lake Airport
Sherwood Park News
May 18, 2018
Dear Editor,
Few people are aware of the vital search and rescue work carried out by local CASARA (Civil Air Search and Rescue Association) volunteers from the Cooking Lake Airport.
Every year, the Canadian Forces Joint Rescue Coordination Center (JRCC) in Trenton Ontario and RCMP detachments assign local CASARA teams to initiate numerous aerial searches for missing hunters, snowmobilers, hikers and even aircraft. Our local CASARA region extends from Saskatchewan border to the BC border, north to Slave Lake and as far south as Red Deer.
CASARA volunteers based at the Cooking Lake Airport are typically in the air within two hours of a call. The last search I was on went like this. JRCC called at 11:30 pm with a request to locate and ELT (Emergency Location Transmitter) that was reported by a high flyer (commercial jet) over Vermillion. ELTs are special radio transmitters that automatically broadcast an emergency signal from a crashed airplane. By 1:15 am we were in the air with a pilot, navigator and two spotters. We also carried a special homing radio designed to help pinpoint the location of the ELT signal.
Our homing radio helped to locate the source of the ELT signal but it was too dark to see anything. So we landed at Vermillion where we were met by the RCMP who drove us to the location of the ELT. Fortunately, it wasn’t a crashed airplane but instead it was just an aircraft that had an experienced an extremely hard landing that accidentally set-off the ELT. We located the “embarrassed” pilot who then deactivated the ELT. We flew back to Cooking Lake Airport and landed around 7:30 am with just enough time for breakfast before starting my work day!
CASARA relies on volunteers who are eager to serve their communities and are willing to invest their time to become part of a search crew. Sometimes the hours are a little tough but the rewards of potentially helping to save someone’s life are priceless.
Bob Guzak
Pilot and Spotter for CASARA
Sherwood Park News
May 18, 2018
Dear Editor,
Few people are aware of the vital search and rescue work carried out by local CASARA (Civil Air Search and Rescue Association) volunteers from the Cooking Lake Airport.
Every year, the Canadian Forces Joint Rescue Coordination Center (JRCC) in Trenton Ontario and RCMP detachments assign local CASARA teams to initiate numerous aerial searches for missing hunters, snowmobilers, hikers and even aircraft. Our local CASARA region extends from Saskatchewan border to the BC border, north to Slave Lake and as far south as Red Deer.
CASARA volunteers based at the Cooking Lake Airport are typically in the air within two hours of a call. The last search I was on went like this. JRCC called at 11:30 pm with a request to locate and ELT (Emergency Location Transmitter) that was reported by a high flyer (commercial jet) over Vermillion. ELTs are special radio transmitters that automatically broadcast an emergency signal from a crashed airplane. By 1:15 am we were in the air with a pilot, navigator and two spotters. We also carried a special homing radio designed to help pinpoint the location of the ELT signal.
Our homing radio helped to locate the source of the ELT signal but it was too dark to see anything. So we landed at Vermillion where we were met by the RCMP who drove us to the location of the ELT. Fortunately, it wasn’t a crashed airplane but instead it was just an aircraft that had an experienced an extremely hard landing that accidentally set-off the ELT. We located the “embarrassed” pilot who then deactivated the ELT. We flew back to Cooking Lake Airport and landed around 7:30 am with just enough time for breakfast before starting my work day!
CASARA relies on volunteers who are eager to serve their communities and are willing to invest their time to become part of a search crew. Sometimes the hours are a little tough but the rewards of potentially helping to save someone’s life are priceless.
Bob Guzak
Pilot and Spotter for CASARA
Letter: Kudos to Cooking Lake Airport
Sherwood park News
March 12, 2018
I live in Humboldt, Sask., and travel to the Sherwood Park area fairly often for business and to visit family. To save time, I usually fly into the Cooking Lake Airport because of its excellent location and facilities. I assumed that a busy public airport like Cooking Lake Airport would be operated by Strathcona County, but I was wrong. I recently learned the airport is operated entirely by volunteers.
On behalf of others like me who use the airport, I would like to offer a big shout out to the volunteers who keep it going!
Doug Warwick
Humboldt, Sask.
Sherwood park News
March 12, 2018
I live in Humboldt, Sask., and travel to the Sherwood Park area fairly often for business and to visit family. To save time, I usually fly into the Cooking Lake Airport because of its excellent location and facilities. I assumed that a busy public airport like Cooking Lake Airport would be operated by Strathcona County, but I was wrong. I recently learned the airport is operated entirely by volunteers.
On behalf of others like me who use the airport, I would like to offer a big shout out to the volunteers who keep it going!
Doug Warwick
Humboldt, Sask.
Letter: Consider the airport in county vision
Sherwood park News
March 5, 2018
We were delighted to see Coun. Bill Tonita’s Feb. 2 opinion column (“Creating a vision for the next 50 years”) in the Sherwood Park News, inviting residents to contribute to the creation of a 50-year vision for Strathcona County. Our community owes much of its success to early pioneers who created the vision we are living today — courageous men and women who weren’t afraid of adversity or taking risks.
Among that group of risk-takers were the early bush pilots who established the Cooking Lake Airport in 1926 to help connect Canada’s most remote communities to the world. Take a moment to consider how extraordinarily difficult that must have been — a crude compass for navigation, no maps to follow, unreliable aircraft, and no airports to fly to since the idea of moving people and cargo was still new and unproven. But, they figured out how to equip aircraft with pontoons for landing on water in the summer, and skis for landing on snow in the winter. It was crude, but it did the job.
Strathcona County’s rich aviation history continues today. The Cooking Lake Airport is the oldest operating public airport in all of Canada, and the sixth busiest community airport in Alberta. With 26,000 aircraft movements each year, the airport supports the same volume of air traffic as the Lethbridge Airport. Cooking Lake Airport is also one of only five Alberta airports approved for international arrivals under the CBSA CANPASS program.
Cooking Lake Airport is the busiest public airport in the county and serves 87-per-cent of the county’s public aeronautical traffic, while the Warren Thomas Aerodrome at Josephburg serves the remaining 13 per cent. Cooking Lake Airport is also the only significant hub of economic activity in the southern third of the county, and contributes approximately $9.85 million in economic value to the region each year.
The bush pilots who established the airport 92 years ago are no longer with us, but their vision of connecting people and communities through the airport lives on in the volunteers who continue to operate the airport. Today, the airport is primarily used for flight training, search and rescue, and local businesses using small aircraft to reach their customers across Western Canada and the U.S. There is also an active recreational component to the airport — weekend pilots looking for adventure, families meeting their loved ones who arrive for a visit, and curious youngsters eager for a close-up look at the airplanes.
We sincerely hope our new mayor and council share our vision for the airport, and we look forward to working with them to ensure Canada’s oldest operating public airport can continue serving the community for the next 50 years.
Jim Johannsson
Cooking Lake Airport volunteer
Sherwood park News
March 5, 2018
We were delighted to see Coun. Bill Tonita’s Feb. 2 opinion column (“Creating a vision for the next 50 years”) in the Sherwood Park News, inviting residents to contribute to the creation of a 50-year vision for Strathcona County. Our community owes much of its success to early pioneers who created the vision we are living today — courageous men and women who weren’t afraid of adversity or taking risks.
Among that group of risk-takers were the early bush pilots who established the Cooking Lake Airport in 1926 to help connect Canada’s most remote communities to the world. Take a moment to consider how extraordinarily difficult that must have been — a crude compass for navigation, no maps to follow, unreliable aircraft, and no airports to fly to since the idea of moving people and cargo was still new and unproven. But, they figured out how to equip aircraft with pontoons for landing on water in the summer, and skis for landing on snow in the winter. It was crude, but it did the job.
Strathcona County’s rich aviation history continues today. The Cooking Lake Airport is the oldest operating public airport in all of Canada, and the sixth busiest community airport in Alberta. With 26,000 aircraft movements each year, the airport supports the same volume of air traffic as the Lethbridge Airport. Cooking Lake Airport is also one of only five Alberta airports approved for international arrivals under the CBSA CANPASS program.
Cooking Lake Airport is the busiest public airport in the county and serves 87-per-cent of the county’s public aeronautical traffic, while the Warren Thomas Aerodrome at Josephburg serves the remaining 13 per cent. Cooking Lake Airport is also the only significant hub of economic activity in the southern third of the county, and contributes approximately $9.85 million in economic value to the region each year.
The bush pilots who established the airport 92 years ago are no longer with us, but their vision of connecting people and communities through the airport lives on in the volunteers who continue to operate the airport. Today, the airport is primarily used for flight training, search and rescue, and local businesses using small aircraft to reach their customers across Western Canada and the U.S. There is also an active recreational component to the airport — weekend pilots looking for adventure, families meeting their loved ones who arrive for a visit, and curious youngsters eager for a close-up look at the airplanes.
We sincerely hope our new mayor and council share our vision for the airport, and we look forward to working with them to ensure Canada’s oldest operating public airport can continue serving the community for the next 50 years.
Jim Johannsson
Cooking Lake Airport volunteer
Airport seeks council support
Sherwood park News
February 21, 2018
Strathcona County administration is weighing the pros and cons of providing a letter of support for the Cooking Lake Airport.
County Mayor Rod Frank brought forward a recommendation during the Feb. 6 council meeting to request administration to provide information on the implications of providing a letter of support for the South Cooking Lake Airport’s application for registration as a qualified donee under the Income Tax Act, and the information would be provided to council for consideration by the end of the first quarter of 2018.
Becoming a qualified donee would mean the Cooking Lake organization would be able to issue official donation receipts for gifts they receive. The status would also mean registered charities are eligible to make gifts to the Cooking Lake Airport.
“Cooking Lake has requested support for their application to become a qualified donee with CRA (Canadian Revenue Agency),” Frank said.
“As many of you know, the Cooking Lake airport has been engaged in ongoing talks with the county looking for the finances to invest in various endeavours, including their runway.”
Located within the county and run solely by volunteers, the Cooking Lake Airport is Canada’s oldest airport.
“It has various functions,” Frank explained. “It does training, it has a search and rescue function. It has a status with the international airport… and it obviously creates jobs and economic spinoffs.”
He said on the surface, his recommendation looks like a win–win scenario, but to be cautious, the county doesn’t want to create a precedent that might be a disadvantage to the county of its residents.
“The idea is to refer it back to admin; most likely to finance and tax to give their view,” Frank noted.
“The idea is it would allow the airport to receive donations free, for the purpose of infrastructure and other purposes related to the airport. The ask is to direct admin to report back to council with any possible implications that could have any negative impact on the county or its residents.”
The council vote was unanimous; Coun. Dave Anderson was absent from the meeting.
Sherwood park News
February 21, 2018
Strathcona County administration is weighing the pros and cons of providing a letter of support for the Cooking Lake Airport.
County Mayor Rod Frank brought forward a recommendation during the Feb. 6 council meeting to request administration to provide information on the implications of providing a letter of support for the South Cooking Lake Airport’s application for registration as a qualified donee under the Income Tax Act, and the information would be provided to council for consideration by the end of the first quarter of 2018.
Becoming a qualified donee would mean the Cooking Lake organization would be able to issue official donation receipts for gifts they receive. The status would also mean registered charities are eligible to make gifts to the Cooking Lake Airport.
“Cooking Lake has requested support for their application to become a qualified donee with CRA (Canadian Revenue Agency),” Frank said.
“As many of you know, the Cooking Lake airport has been engaged in ongoing talks with the county looking for the finances to invest in various endeavours, including their runway.”
Located within the county and run solely by volunteers, the Cooking Lake Airport is Canada’s oldest airport.
“It has various functions,” Frank explained. “It does training, it has a search and rescue function. It has a status with the international airport… and it obviously creates jobs and economic spinoffs.”
He said on the surface, his recommendation looks like a win–win scenario, but to be cautious, the county doesn’t want to create a precedent that might be a disadvantage to the county of its residents.
“The idea is to refer it back to admin; most likely to finance and tax to give their view,” Frank noted.
“The idea is it would allow the airport to receive donations free, for the purpose of infrastructure and other purposes related to the airport. The ask is to direct admin to report back to council with any possible implications that could have any negative impact on the county or its residents.”
The council vote was unanimous; Coun. Dave Anderson was absent from the meeting.
Letter: Re: "Need guidance for fair" taxes
Sherwood Park News
May 9, 2017
Although I am neither a hanger owner nor a renter at the Cooking Lake Airport, I am a pilot and a resident of Sherwood Park. I have had the good fortune to travel by air to communities all over Canada and the U.S., and I can assure you that Cooking Lake Airport is one of the best small airports in North America. I fully appreciate how important the airport is to visitors, businesses, student pilots, and search and rescue — it truly is an invaluable community resource.
I am astounded that the County of Strathcona appears totally oblivious to the significance of this resource within its borers.
Albertans are pragmatic and resourceful people with a strong belief in fair play. It’s simply not “our Alberta way” to burden the volunteers who keep the airport running with an unfair double dose of taxes, compared to the county-owned Josephburg airport. It would be a huge loss to all Albertans if the volunteers at Cooking Lake Airport decided to reduce their costs by making the airport private and closing Canada’s oldest operating airport to the general public.
The airport was built at considerable expense by the Government of Alberta for all Albertans. The airport volunteers deserve our thanks, not an unfair double dose of taxes.
Henry Stiller
Sherwood Park
Sherwood Park News
May 9, 2017
Although I am neither a hanger owner nor a renter at the Cooking Lake Airport, I am a pilot and a resident of Sherwood Park. I have had the good fortune to travel by air to communities all over Canada and the U.S., and I can assure you that Cooking Lake Airport is one of the best small airports in North America. I fully appreciate how important the airport is to visitors, businesses, student pilots, and search and rescue — it truly is an invaluable community resource.
I am astounded that the County of Strathcona appears totally oblivious to the significance of this resource within its borers.
Albertans are pragmatic and resourceful people with a strong belief in fair play. It’s simply not “our Alberta way” to burden the volunteers who keep the airport running with an unfair double dose of taxes, compared to the county-owned Josephburg airport. It would be a huge loss to all Albertans if the volunteers at Cooking Lake Airport decided to reduce their costs by making the airport private and closing Canada’s oldest operating airport to the general public.
The airport was built at considerable expense by the Government of Alberta for all Albertans. The airport volunteers deserve our thanks, not an unfair double dose of taxes.
Henry Stiller
Sherwood Park
Re: “No competitive edge,”
Letter: Where’s the leadership on tax fairness?
Sherwood Park News
April 21, 2017
I have been very fortunate to own a hangar at the Cooking Lake Airport for more than 25 years. Not only is Cooking Lake the oldest public airport in Canada, and the sixth busiest community airport in Alberta, but it is also operated entirely by volunteers with no government support of any kind. For some inexplicable reason, property taxes at Cooking Lake Airport are double those at the county’s Josephburg airport. Mayor Roxanne Carr has been made aware of the massive tax inequity issue at Cooking Lake Airport since she was elected, but sadly, she has failed to lead administration to fix it.
The Cooking Lake Airport is, and remains, a great public asset to Alberta. Currently, any pilot can use it without prior permission and without paying landing fees, unlike some other airports in Alberta. It is the location of significant pilot training.
The hangar owners at Cooking Lake Airport are happy to pay their fair share of taxes, but double the normal tax rate is simply not fair. It’s time for Mayor Carr and council to show some leadership and fix this inequity.
Ed Andrews
Sherwood Park
Letter: Where’s the leadership on tax fairness?
Sherwood Park News
April 21, 2017
I have been very fortunate to own a hangar at the Cooking Lake Airport for more than 25 years. Not only is Cooking Lake the oldest public airport in Canada, and the sixth busiest community airport in Alberta, but it is also operated entirely by volunteers with no government support of any kind. For some inexplicable reason, property taxes at Cooking Lake Airport are double those at the county’s Josephburg airport. Mayor Roxanne Carr has been made aware of the massive tax inequity issue at Cooking Lake Airport since she was elected, but sadly, she has failed to lead administration to fix it.
The Cooking Lake Airport is, and remains, a great public asset to Alberta. Currently, any pilot can use it without prior permission and without paying landing fees, unlike some other airports in Alberta. It is the location of significant pilot training.
The hangar owners at Cooking Lake Airport are happy to pay their fair share of taxes, but double the normal tax rate is simply not fair. It’s time for Mayor Carr and council to show some leadership and fix this inequity.
Ed Andrews
Sherwood Park
Claim of County competitive edge shut down
Ben Proulx
Sherwood Park News
April 21, 2017
It would seem the county’s perceived competitive edge is nothing but a dull sword.
Recently, volunteers working with the Cooking Lake Airport launched an official request for the Competition Bureau of Canada to investigate Strathcona County for “anti-competitive practices.”
Workers at the volunteer-operated Cooking Lake facility argued at the time that the county was giving an unfair boost to the municipally-operated Warren Thomas Aerodrome through “massive financial advantages.”
Alleged advantages included taxpayer-funded subsidies to Warren Thomas, while similar equitable subsidies were not available to the Cooking Lake facility.
As a response to the request, the Competition Bureau launched a pre-investigation of sorts, looking into the issue before determining whether a full-fledged investigation was required.
It was not.
Following a preliminary review of the complaint, the Competition Bureau notified the Cooking Lake Airport volunteers last Wednesday that it would not be proceeding with the “enforcement phase” of the investigation.
The Bureau uses a three-part test to determine whether further action is required, including: evidence of anti-competitive behaviour; dominant market share (more than 50 per cent); and the potential of reducing competitive choice in the marketplace.
However, the Competition Bureau confirmed that Warren Thomas serves barely 13 per cent of the public air transportation needs in the county, while Cooking Lake Airport serves 87 per cent, meaning the county does not have the dominant market share.
Jim Johannsson, a volunteer at Cooking Lake Airport who has spoken out against the county extensively on the issue, said the ruling “doesn’t mean (the county’s) other tactics aren’t unfair; it just means that the likelihood of a successful conviction is low.”
“While this is not the decision we were looking for, it does reinforce the fact that the county’s most important public airport is Cooking Lake,” Johannsson told The News, before claiming: “It also raises a significant moral dilemma for the county how can they justify providing all operational services and financial support to the tiny Warren Thomas airport, and then provide no operational services and zero financial support to Cooking Lake Airport, which is supporting 87 per cent of the county’s total public air transportation needs?”
Johannsson still believes there are issues in how the county is operating its aerodrome, and the taxation discrepancies between the Warren Thomas and Cooking Lake facilities.
“I think we should all be asking our councillors to explain the inequitable treatment of the largest public airport, located in the heart of the county, while throwing all its support at an airport that is mostly serving users in another county,” he said.
“It’s certainly a puzzling allocation of priorities and resources.”
In a cost comparison obtained by The News, Warren Thomas pays a total of $2,911 per year for hangar fees, hangar property taxes, aircraft tie-down fees, and municipal road levies. Conversely, Cooking Lake Airport pays $11,590 annually in the same categories.
“Instead of thanking the volunteers who are operating the Cooking Lake Airport at no cost to the county, they punish them with unfair tax rates that are almost double those at the Warren Thomas Aerodrome,” Johannsson said.
“Even though the county’s actions are not yet considered illegal, that doesn’t mean they are fair or moral,” he went on to claim.
Volunteers with Cooking Lake Airport have filed two separate appeals related to the property tax inequity, and Johannsson confirmed the group has requested a meeting with the minister of Municipal Affairs to “request he open a public consultation on the creation of some common sense rules to ensure municipalities compete fairly with non-profit, volunteer organizations.”
The county was unavailable for comment before The News’ press time.
Ben Proulx
Sherwood Park News
April 21, 2017
It would seem the county’s perceived competitive edge is nothing but a dull sword.
Recently, volunteers working with the Cooking Lake Airport launched an official request for the Competition Bureau of Canada to investigate Strathcona County for “anti-competitive practices.”
Workers at the volunteer-operated Cooking Lake facility argued at the time that the county was giving an unfair boost to the municipally-operated Warren Thomas Aerodrome through “massive financial advantages.”
Alleged advantages included taxpayer-funded subsidies to Warren Thomas, while similar equitable subsidies were not available to the Cooking Lake facility.
As a response to the request, the Competition Bureau launched a pre-investigation of sorts, looking into the issue before determining whether a full-fledged investigation was required.
It was not.
Following a preliminary review of the complaint, the Competition Bureau notified the Cooking Lake Airport volunteers last Wednesday that it would not be proceeding with the “enforcement phase” of the investigation.
The Bureau uses a three-part test to determine whether further action is required, including: evidence of anti-competitive behaviour; dominant market share (more than 50 per cent); and the potential of reducing competitive choice in the marketplace.
However, the Competition Bureau confirmed that Warren Thomas serves barely 13 per cent of the public air transportation needs in the county, while Cooking Lake Airport serves 87 per cent, meaning the county does not have the dominant market share.
Jim Johannsson, a volunteer at Cooking Lake Airport who has spoken out against the county extensively on the issue, said the ruling “doesn’t mean (the county’s) other tactics aren’t unfair; it just means that the likelihood of a successful conviction is low.”
“While this is not the decision we were looking for, it does reinforce the fact that the county’s most important public airport is Cooking Lake,” Johannsson told The News, before claiming: “It also raises a significant moral dilemma for the county how can they justify providing all operational services and financial support to the tiny Warren Thomas airport, and then provide no operational services and zero financial support to Cooking Lake Airport, which is supporting 87 per cent of the county’s total public air transportation needs?”
Johannsson still believes there are issues in how the county is operating its aerodrome, and the taxation discrepancies between the Warren Thomas and Cooking Lake facilities.
“I think we should all be asking our councillors to explain the inequitable treatment of the largest public airport, located in the heart of the county, while throwing all its support at an airport that is mostly serving users in another county,” he said.
“It’s certainly a puzzling allocation of priorities and resources.”
In a cost comparison obtained by The News, Warren Thomas pays a total of $2,911 per year for hangar fees, hangar property taxes, aircraft tie-down fees, and municipal road levies. Conversely, Cooking Lake Airport pays $11,590 annually in the same categories.
“Instead of thanking the volunteers who are operating the Cooking Lake Airport at no cost to the county, they punish them with unfair tax rates that are almost double those at the Warren Thomas Aerodrome,” Johannsson said.
“Even though the county’s actions are not yet considered illegal, that doesn’t mean they are fair or moral,” he went on to claim.
Volunteers with Cooking Lake Airport have filed two separate appeals related to the property tax inequity, and Johannsson confirmed the group has requested a meeting with the minister of Municipal Affairs to “request he open a public consultation on the creation of some common sense rules to ensure municipalities compete fairly with non-profit, volunteer organizations.”
The county was unavailable for comment before The News’ press time.
Strathcona County accused of unfair competition
Sherwood park News
March 21, 2017
On Feb. 21, the volunteer team at the local Cooking Lake Airport sent a request to the federal Competition Bureau of Canada to investigate allegations against Strathcona County of “anti-competitive practices”, saying: “Strathcona County has granted its Warren Thomas Aerodrome massive financial advantages, including property tax exemptions, and taxpayer-funded subsidies, while withholding similar equitable treatments from the Cooking Lake Airport.”
The request for investigation states the different treatment towards the two airports allows “Strathcona County to offer services to its airport customers at significantly lower costs than can be offered at Cooking Lake Airport,” and goes on to allege this as an “egregious violation of the Competition Act.”
The Competition Bureau has now begun its preliminary investigation into the issue, after which point they’ll determine whether a more in-depth investigation is required.
“We’re just kind of in that wait-and-see mode,” said Jim Johannsson, a volunteer at Cooking Lake Airport, who added: “Its basically years of frustration in trying to achieve tax equity with the Warren Thomas airport.”
“The county is fully aware of these inequities, as they have been the subject of ongoing correspondence between Cooking Lake Airport and county council/administration since 2008,” the request for investigation states.
The request for investigation goes on to claim “a variety of tactics to unfairly prolong their competitive pricing advantage,” include “muzzling of elected officials”; delayed response or no response to formal letters and requests submitted to the county; “extreme delays for meeting requests,” noting it can sometimes take up to four months to schedule a meeting; and “unnecessary deflection of inquiries to appeal boards.”
“It’s very, very difficult to speak to anybody at the county about this issue,” Johannsson said.
“It is what it is, but it takes literally months to get a meeting with anybody,” he alleged.
“We know they don’t want to deal with the tax issues out there, and I think they’re just trying to avoid it.”
Johannsson also claimed the county increased taxation at the Cooking Lake Airport by around 470 per cent between 2008 and 2014, or around 24.8 per cent per year.
“This significantly exceeds the average annual property tax increases in the county during that same period,” he said.
“The tax increases finally stabilized last year, but at a level that is almost twice the level of taxation of similar properties at Warren Thomas Aerodrome.
“We all understand and support the need for property taxes, but the volunteers who operate the airport feel very strongly that this is excessive and unfair.”
While both local airports are listed as public facilities through Transport Canada, Cooking Lake hosts around 26,000 flights per year, making it the sixth-busiest airport in Alberta, while Warren Thomas sees around 4,000.
The former is qualified as an international runway, while the latter is not.
“It is not appropriate for the county to use its monopoly powers to manipulate the market and unjustly enrich itself — especially when its competitor is a non-profit volunteer organization performing a public service,” the Cooking Lake Airport group claims.
“Our hope is that the Competition Bureau comes in and says, ‘You guys are subsidizing your airport and that’s just not fair under the Competition Act. You’re excluding Cooking Lake Airport from access to scarce public resources that you control to your benefit.’ That’s just not right,” Johannsson said.
While the Municipal Government Act does include provisions that would allow municipalities to waive property taxes on public airport uses, such as runways and taxi-ways, municipalities can choose to tax such facilities, as is the case in Strathcona County.
“The folks at the county are actually really nice people to work with,” Johannsson said. “They’re the type of people that you’d love to have over for a BBQ. But we find doing business with them very, very challenging.”
Should the Competition Bureau come back with a different end result than hoped for by volunteers at the Cooking Lake Airport, the group claims it could be the end of the 90-year-old facility — at least in Strathcona County.
“If we are unable to achieve property tax equity with the Warren Thomas Aerodrome, it has become clear to us that there is really no beneficial reason for the airport to remain part of Strathcona County, Johannsson said.
“In fact, many consider remaining a part of the county is detrimental to the long-term viability of the airport. That is the reason we have been working with Alberta Municipal Affairs on how to create a specialized municipality at Cooking Lake Airport.”
While representatives from Strathcona County and the Competition Bureau were contacted for comment, both declined due to the legal nature of the investigation.
“We are aware of the request for an investigation made to the Commissioner of Competition by a representative of the Cooking Lake Airport, and have received a copy of the request,” said Mavis Nathoo, director of Legislative and Legal Services with the county.
“We will cooperate fully in any inquiry of the commissioner, if one is undertaken.”
Four hour rescue not acceptable
Sherwood Park News
July 7, 2016
A four-hour rescue mission may be deemed as unacceptable; however, Strathcona County Emergency Services (SCES) made the right decisions.
On Tuesday, June 28, a 76-year-old pilot took off from South Cooking Lake Airport. Shortly after, the plane snagged the water of the lake, causing the plane to flip over into the water.
Once SCES arrived on scene, the rescue did not work in their favour as several problems occurred, preventing the rescue team from getting to the pilot in a timely matter.
“The water rescue team attempted several different locations for accessing the lake,” said Iain Bushell, SCES fire chief, during a presentation to county council on Tuesday, July 5.
“The first place they went was Range Road 214, they went back to the staging area, which was the Cooking Lake Sailing Club. Their first attempt was unsuccessful there.
“They moved to the airport and at one point, they did a drive by of the park that’s in South Cooking Lake; however, the access there was blocked by concrete barriers and there was no access to the lake from that point. They also attempted Range Road 213... that was where they got the airboat stuck the worst due to the mud.”
He said the water rescue team attempted three pre-planned launch locations and one alternate location for the airboat.
“We have been to Cooking Lake,” Bushell said. “We have practiced on Cooking Lake and we have identified three locations where we can and should be able to access the lake if we need to, so it is not that we showed up at the lake and we had no idea what we were doing or where we were going. We tried three different locations.”
The low water levels of South Cooking Lake presented several challenges for the rescue team and Bushell noted that if this rescue had occurred 25 years ago, the boat would have been in the water within five minutes.
“The team had last been at the lake and done a complete reconnaissance at the end of April,” Bushell said.
“Water levels had changed since the end of April. There was a bit of an expectation of success on the part of my water rescue team that they were going to go to their first, primary location, they were going to launch the boat, just like we did the last time we trained here, and this was going to go well.”
Road access conditions at the Sailing Club also presented challenges, as the road was not in good condition and was considered unsafe.
SCES is going to conduct a thorough review of all their procedures, including the activation of the team, where the equipment is staged, how long it took to get the team to the location and how they identified where they should launch first.
“It is not that we don’t know what we are doing, this just didn’t go well,” Bushell said. “Every decision that was made, I reviewed it and I don’t disagree with each one of those individual decisions.”
He added that based on the review, SCES will consider moving to Plan C and Plan D more quicker and activating resources a little more promptly.
“Viewed from the public and both my perspective, a water rescue that takes over four hours is not acceptable,” Bushell said. “I don’t think it is acceptable. I am not happy. The team is not very pleased with their own performance, so we understand the public scrutiny we received because on the face of it, why did it take us four hours to get to the middle of the lake?, that sounds pretty unreasonable... but there were a number of factors that led to that.”
As the councillor who oversees South Cooking Lake, Bonnie Riddell asked if the other lakes in the county would be considered for review and Bushell said the review will go beyond South Cooking Lake.
SCES will return to a future council meeting with a finalized review.
Sherwood Park News
July 7, 2016
A four-hour rescue mission may be deemed as unacceptable; however, Strathcona County Emergency Services (SCES) made the right decisions.
On Tuesday, June 28, a 76-year-old pilot took off from South Cooking Lake Airport. Shortly after, the plane snagged the water of the lake, causing the plane to flip over into the water.
Once SCES arrived on scene, the rescue did not work in their favour as several problems occurred, preventing the rescue team from getting to the pilot in a timely matter.
“The water rescue team attempted several different locations for accessing the lake,” said Iain Bushell, SCES fire chief, during a presentation to county council on Tuesday, July 5.
“The first place they went was Range Road 214, they went back to the staging area, which was the Cooking Lake Sailing Club. Their first attempt was unsuccessful there.
“They moved to the airport and at one point, they did a drive by of the park that’s in South Cooking Lake; however, the access there was blocked by concrete barriers and there was no access to the lake from that point. They also attempted Range Road 213... that was where they got the airboat stuck the worst due to the mud.”
He said the water rescue team attempted three pre-planned launch locations and one alternate location for the airboat.
“We have been to Cooking Lake,” Bushell said. “We have practiced on Cooking Lake and we have identified three locations where we can and should be able to access the lake if we need to, so it is not that we showed up at the lake and we had no idea what we were doing or where we were going. We tried three different locations.”
The low water levels of South Cooking Lake presented several challenges for the rescue team and Bushell noted that if this rescue had occurred 25 years ago, the boat would have been in the water within five minutes.
“The team had last been at the lake and done a complete reconnaissance at the end of April,” Bushell said.
“Water levels had changed since the end of April. There was a bit of an expectation of success on the part of my water rescue team that they were going to go to their first, primary location, they were going to launch the boat, just like we did the last time we trained here, and this was going to go well.”
Road access conditions at the Sailing Club also presented challenges, as the road was not in good condition and was considered unsafe.
SCES is going to conduct a thorough review of all their procedures, including the activation of the team, where the equipment is staged, how long it took to get the team to the location and how they identified where they should launch first.
“It is not that we don’t know what we are doing, this just didn’t go well,” Bushell said. “Every decision that was made, I reviewed it and I don’t disagree with each one of those individual decisions.”
He added that based on the review, SCES will consider moving to Plan C and Plan D more quicker and activating resources a little more promptly.
“Viewed from the public and both my perspective, a water rescue that takes over four hours is not acceptable,” Bushell said. “I don’t think it is acceptable. I am not happy. The team is not very pleased with their own performance, so we understand the public scrutiny we received because on the face of it, why did it take us four hours to get to the middle of the lake?, that sounds pretty unreasonable... but there were a number of factors that led to that.”
As the councillor who oversees South Cooking Lake, Bonnie Riddell asked if the other lakes in the county would be considered for review and Bushell said the review will go beyond South Cooking Lake.
SCES will return to a future council meeting with a finalized review.
When Ed Boychuck took off from South Cooking Lake in his Cessna 180 float plane on Tuesday, he never imagined he would end up crash landing, or that it would take the fire department four hours to reach him.
“We just saw everybody come down and the cops were all over the place,” Wayne Tabula, another pilot who witnessed the plane in the lake, said.
The pilot of the Cessna was on his way to Smokey Lake. Shortly after taking off from the airport’s runway, RCMP said the plane lost altitude and it’s wing touched the water, causing it to flip over.
“Our main concern was how is he? I hope he’s ok,” pilot Shaer Bowora said. “When we pulled in, I saw the seaplane parked on the ramp. I said that’s a nice seaplane, that’d be fun to fly. Then he took off and I didn’t see him.”
The pilot suffered minor injuries and was able to safely remove himself from the plane and call 911. Strathcona County Fire crews were on the scene promptly – but getting closer to the crash site would prove to be a challenge.
“It was a very challenging rescue,” Deputy Chief Devin Capcara said. “The lake is quite low. There’s a very thick layer of mud on the bottom. The first crew was very challenged to get out to the pilot – it was basically crawling their way through mud.”
The County’s Water Rescue Team was deployed in a rapid deployment craft – a specialized yellow dingy. The team had just been out on the lake six weeks earlier for training. But the mud was too much for the boat, and fire crews arriving in trucks were having difficulty reaching the shoreline because the water had receded so much.
“We put the boat off, tried to get it through the mud,” Capcara said. “They weren’t able to get it through. They had to winch it back, reload it, move it to another spot, try it again, so all in all it took us almost four hours from the time we got there to the time we were able to get the boat in the water and get out there.”
“Frustrating for everybody there,” Capcara added. “But once we knew that the gentleman was safe and had relatively minor injuries- we switched from an emergent mode to try to get there as safely and effectively as we can.”
Jim Meyer watched emergency responders struggling to get to the plane. He didn’t understand why the rescue was taking so long.
“The plane was about a mile off shore and about a mile and a half from the Strathcona County Fire Department on South Cooking Lake. 4.5 hours is ridiculous to get to a plane that’s a mile off shore,” Meyer said.
Meyer owns a flat-bottomed canoe, which easily navigates through shallow water.
“I figured if anybody had a chance to get there I could,” Mayer said. “It took about 40 minutes to get out there– about a mile.”
When Meyer reached the pilot, he had visible eye, leg and shoulder injuries.
“He was happy to see somebody– he wanted some water.”
Meyer helped the elderly man into the canoe and stayed with him until firefighters finally arrived a few minutes later.
“I felt good getting out to him. I feel like after four hours of waiting for help he was quite excited to see somebody — and I was actually quite proud of myself,” Meyer said.
Despite the delayed response, 76-year-old Boychuck said he was grateful to everyone that assisted in his rescue.
“I have nothing but praise for Strathcona County Fire and Jim Meyer,” Boychuck said. “They had a few problems but I’m OK with that. Everything worked out great.”
He said he thinks the best thing that could happen is for the fire department to learn from the issues moving forward.
“We’ll look at what we can do better in the future, what we will change and what we can do differently,” Capcara said.
The fire official also admitted there were several obstacles that day – but safety was the main priority.
“We could have been more aggressive to get out onto the lake, but again, a little aggressive means a little more dangerous – so we were able to avoid that because we knew he was OK.”
Strathcona County Fire officials are looking into other ways to access a shallow lake.
“We will work with the people that maintain the road to make sure the road is passable,” Capcara said. “Look at creating something like plywood or something we could roll out {over the mud}.”
Meyer plans to pursue answers from the County regarding the lengthy response.
“I’d just like to know that if something happens on that lake, that they can respond and get to that person in a reasonable amount of time.”
with files from Sarah Kraus
“We just saw everybody come down and the cops were all over the place,” Wayne Tabula, another pilot who witnessed the plane in the lake, said.
The pilot of the Cessna was on his way to Smokey Lake. Shortly after taking off from the airport’s runway, RCMP said the plane lost altitude and it’s wing touched the water, causing it to flip over.
“Our main concern was how is he? I hope he’s ok,” pilot Shaer Bowora said. “When we pulled in, I saw the seaplane parked on the ramp. I said that’s a nice seaplane, that’d be fun to fly. Then he took off and I didn’t see him.”
The pilot suffered minor injuries and was able to safely remove himself from the plane and call 911. Strathcona County Fire crews were on the scene promptly – but getting closer to the crash site would prove to be a challenge.
“It was a very challenging rescue,” Deputy Chief Devin Capcara said. “The lake is quite low. There’s a very thick layer of mud on the bottom. The first crew was very challenged to get out to the pilot – it was basically crawling their way through mud.”
The County’s Water Rescue Team was deployed in a rapid deployment craft – a specialized yellow dingy. The team had just been out on the lake six weeks earlier for training. But the mud was too much for the boat, and fire crews arriving in trucks were having difficulty reaching the shoreline because the water had receded so much.
“We put the boat off, tried to get it through the mud,” Capcara said. “They weren’t able to get it through. They had to winch it back, reload it, move it to another spot, try it again, so all in all it took us almost four hours from the time we got there to the time we were able to get the boat in the water and get out there.”
“Frustrating for everybody there,” Capcara added. “But once we knew that the gentleman was safe and had relatively minor injuries- we switched from an emergent mode to try to get there as safely and effectively as we can.”
Jim Meyer watched emergency responders struggling to get to the plane. He didn’t understand why the rescue was taking so long.
“The plane was about a mile off shore and about a mile and a half from the Strathcona County Fire Department on South Cooking Lake. 4.5 hours is ridiculous to get to a plane that’s a mile off shore,” Meyer said.
Meyer owns a flat-bottomed canoe, which easily navigates through shallow water.
“I figured if anybody had a chance to get there I could,” Mayer said. “It took about 40 minutes to get out there– about a mile.”
When Meyer reached the pilot, he had visible eye, leg and shoulder injuries.
“He was happy to see somebody– he wanted some water.”
Meyer helped the elderly man into the canoe and stayed with him until firefighters finally arrived a few minutes later.
“I felt good getting out to him. I feel like after four hours of waiting for help he was quite excited to see somebody — and I was actually quite proud of myself,” Meyer said.
Despite the delayed response, 76-year-old Boychuck said he was grateful to everyone that assisted in his rescue.
“I have nothing but praise for Strathcona County Fire and Jim Meyer,” Boychuck said. “They had a few problems but I’m OK with that. Everything worked out great.”
He said he thinks the best thing that could happen is for the fire department to learn from the issues moving forward.
“We’ll look at what we can do better in the future, what we will change and what we can do differently,” Capcara said.
The fire official also admitted there were several obstacles that day – but safety was the main priority.
“We could have been more aggressive to get out onto the lake, but again, a little aggressive means a little more dangerous – so we were able to avoid that because we knew he was OK.”
Strathcona County Fire officials are looking into other ways to access a shallow lake.
“We will work with the people that maintain the road to make sure the road is passable,” Capcara said. “Look at creating something like plywood or something we could roll out {over the mud}.”
Meyer plans to pursue answers from the County regarding the lengthy response.
“I’d just like to know that if something happens on that lake, that they can respond and get to that person in a reasonable amount of time.”
with files from Sarah Kraus
Small plane crashes near Edmonton, pilot escapes unharmed
The Canadian Press
June 28, 2016
A 76-year-old pilot escaped with just minor injuries when his small plane crash in Strathcona County Tuesday.
He was flying a Cessna 180 float plane and was scheduled to take off from South Cooking Lake southeast of Sherwood Park, Alta.
During takeoff one of the plane’s wings reportedly touched the water, causing the plane to flip.
Officials say the biggest problem was that it took five-and-a-half hours for rescue crews to get to him, as the lake is shallow and very muddy.
Strathcona County deputy fire chief Vern Elliot says even an air boat used for such situations had trouble getting out to the site of the crash.
While rescue efforts were underway, a man in a canoe paddled out and offered the pilot some water, but Elliot says they discourage Good Samaritans from trying to undertake their own rescues.
He says it “kind of makes the incident more complex.”
With files from CHED and Global News
The Canadian Press
June 28, 2016
A 76-year-old pilot escaped with just minor injuries when his small plane crash in Strathcona County Tuesday.
He was flying a Cessna 180 float plane and was scheduled to take off from South Cooking Lake southeast of Sherwood Park, Alta.
During takeoff one of the plane’s wings reportedly touched the water, causing the plane to flip.
Officials say the biggest problem was that it took five-and-a-half hours for rescue crews to get to him, as the lake is shallow and very muddy.
Strathcona County deputy fire chief Vern Elliot says even an air boat used for such situations had trouble getting out to the site of the crash.
While rescue efforts were underway, a man in a canoe paddled out and offered the pilot some water, but Elliot says they discourage Good Samaritans from trying to undertake their own rescues.
He says it “kind of makes the incident more complex.”
With files from CHED and Global News
Alberta pilot wants answers after slow response to plane crash
'If he was a little more seriously hurt than what he was, he could have possibly died sitting on the wing'
CBC News
Jul 01, 2016
An Alberta pilot wants answers to what he describes as a botched rescue after a plane crashed into Cooking Lake on Tuesday.
"The lake is not that big," said Jim Meyer, a pilot who lives nearby and flies planes out of Cooking Lake Airport, southeast of Edmonton .
"He crashed about at the middle of the lake, which would be about a mile from the shore," Meyer said. "To take four and a half hours to get to an airplane a mile away, I think is ridiculous. And an explanation should be given as to why and what is going to be done if something happens in the future."
Meyer first learned of the crash at 9:30 a.m. Tuesday. He said the Strathcona County Rescue Team showed up with its airboat, much like the ones used in swamps with a big propeller on back, at about 10:30.
They initially planned to launch the airboat from the airport near the lake, but that changed, he said.
"Somebody decided that that wasn't the best place to do it, so they left and went a few miles over and tried to launch it on the shore of the lake," Meyer said.
After waiting until 12:30 p.m. without hearing anything, he drove over to have a look.
On the water more than four hours
"I saw that they had the airboat stuck in the mud. So I went home and at 1 p.m. I was launching my canoe on the side of the lake. And I canoed out to the airplane, and I was there in about 40 minutes."
Pilot Jim Meyer, right, thinks it took too long to rescue of a fellow pilot who crashed into Cooking Lake this week. (Cooking Lake Aviation)
Meyer gave the pilot some water and waited with him for the rescue crew to arrive.
"The airboat eventually came out on the water and came over and picked us up," he said. "And it was 2:15 when they got the pilot back to the shore, to the ambulance. So, basically, he had been out on his airplane, and out on the water, for four and a half hours after he crashed."
But the fire chief and director of emergency services for Strathcona County defended the crew's approach to the rescue.
Iain Bushell said it was challenging, given the low water. While the airboat is designed for such conditions, getting through the mud to reach the water proved difficult, he said.
Bushell described the airboat as the kind used in "an everglade swamp" in Florida.
'We actually had to get to the water'
"It does not have any propeller that goes down into the water, it just has a big engine on the back and a big propeller on the back and top of the boat," he said. "It operates very well in about two inches of water but we actually had to get to the water."
Bushell said the fact that rescuers were in contact with the crashed pilot also played a role in their approach.
"We were talking to him via cellphone and we recognized that he had minor injuries," he said. "And that there was not, I don't want to say that there wasn't any urgency to rescue him, but he certainly wasn't in critical condition. So because of that, the team was making some calculated decisions and doing some risk management about how we would get to the gentleman."
Had the situation been worse they would have called in Canadian Military Search and Rescue, Bushell said.
The rescue crew used the airboat and an inflatable rescue boat.
"That gentleman that got out there in a canoe needed us to rescue him to bring him back again, so he could not get back to shore."
Meyer denied that, and said he could have made it back to shore in his canoe with the crashed pilot, if necessary.
Boat too big for the lake
He said he doesn't believe members of the rescue crew are responsible for the delayed response. But he thinks the rescue boat is too big and heavy for Cooking Lake.
"I think whoever was giving the orders higher up — where to put their boat and stuff like that, should explain this and maybe they should address the equipment that they have," Meyer said. "I personally don't think the equipment they have is satisfactory to get out on that lake."
Meyer said the delay took a toll on the 76-year-old pilot who crashed.
"When I got there, he asked if he could get into the canoe because he had had his feet in the water for almost four hours and they were a little bit pruney," he said. "I think he was still in a little bit of shock possibly. He had a pretty beat up eye, his eye was almost swollen shut and he was sore."
Meyer called on the county to make changes.
Bushell said a review of the rescue will be conducted, to determine if anything should have been done differently.
"But I would say this is certainly a rare event and we are relatively well prepared," he said.
'If he was a little more seriously hurt than what he was, he could have possibly died sitting on the wing'
CBC News
Jul 01, 2016
An Alberta pilot wants answers to what he describes as a botched rescue after a plane crashed into Cooking Lake on Tuesday.
"The lake is not that big," said Jim Meyer, a pilot who lives nearby and flies planes out of Cooking Lake Airport, southeast of Edmonton .
"He crashed about at the middle of the lake, which would be about a mile from the shore," Meyer said. "To take four and a half hours to get to an airplane a mile away, I think is ridiculous. And an explanation should be given as to why and what is going to be done if something happens in the future."
Meyer first learned of the crash at 9:30 a.m. Tuesday. He said the Strathcona County Rescue Team showed up with its airboat, much like the ones used in swamps with a big propeller on back, at about 10:30.
They initially planned to launch the airboat from the airport near the lake, but that changed, he said.
"Somebody decided that that wasn't the best place to do it, so they left and went a few miles over and tried to launch it on the shore of the lake," Meyer said.
After waiting until 12:30 p.m. without hearing anything, he drove over to have a look.
On the water more than four hours
"I saw that they had the airboat stuck in the mud. So I went home and at 1 p.m. I was launching my canoe on the side of the lake. And I canoed out to the airplane, and I was there in about 40 minutes."
Pilot Jim Meyer, right, thinks it took too long to rescue of a fellow pilot who crashed into Cooking Lake this week. (Cooking Lake Aviation)
Meyer gave the pilot some water and waited with him for the rescue crew to arrive.
"The airboat eventually came out on the water and came over and picked us up," he said. "And it was 2:15 when they got the pilot back to the shore, to the ambulance. So, basically, he had been out on his airplane, and out on the water, for four and a half hours after he crashed."
But the fire chief and director of emergency services for Strathcona County defended the crew's approach to the rescue.
Iain Bushell said it was challenging, given the low water. While the airboat is designed for such conditions, getting through the mud to reach the water proved difficult, he said.
Bushell described the airboat as the kind used in "an everglade swamp" in Florida.
'We actually had to get to the water'
"It does not have any propeller that goes down into the water, it just has a big engine on the back and a big propeller on the back and top of the boat," he said. "It operates very well in about two inches of water but we actually had to get to the water."
Bushell said the fact that rescuers were in contact with the crashed pilot also played a role in their approach.
"We were talking to him via cellphone and we recognized that he had minor injuries," he said. "And that there was not, I don't want to say that there wasn't any urgency to rescue him, but he certainly wasn't in critical condition. So because of that, the team was making some calculated decisions and doing some risk management about how we would get to the gentleman."
Had the situation been worse they would have called in Canadian Military Search and Rescue, Bushell said.
The rescue crew used the airboat and an inflatable rescue boat.
"That gentleman that got out there in a canoe needed us to rescue him to bring him back again, so he could not get back to shore."
Meyer denied that, and said he could have made it back to shore in his canoe with the crashed pilot, if necessary.
Boat too big for the lake
He said he doesn't believe members of the rescue crew are responsible for the delayed response. But he thinks the rescue boat is too big and heavy for Cooking Lake.
"I think whoever was giving the orders higher up — where to put their boat and stuff like that, should explain this and maybe they should address the equipment that they have," Meyer said. "I personally don't think the equipment they have is satisfactory to get out on that lake."
Meyer said the delay took a toll on the 76-year-old pilot who crashed.
"When I got there, he asked if he could get into the canoe because he had had his feet in the water for almost four hours and they were a little bit pruney," he said. "I think he was still in a little bit of shock possibly. He had a pretty beat up eye, his eye was almost swollen shut and he was sore."
Meyer called on the county to make changes.
Bushell said a review of the rescue will be conducted, to determine if anything should have been done differently.
"But I would say this is certainly a rare event and we are relatively well prepared," he said.
Cooking Lake — Planes will buzz Saturday around Cooking Lake Airport when the former seaplane base, credited with helping Edmonton claim the title of Gateway to the North, celebrates its 90th anniversary.
The facility, described as Canada’s oldest operating public airport, traces its unofficial origins to 1926, after pilots who had used the area for years had erected docks, cranes and fuel shacks.
“You’re going into remote areas where there was literally nothing. One of the most natural landing spots was on lakes and rivers,” said Jim Johannsson, a member of the volunteer-run airport’s board of directors.
Famed First World War pilot Wilfrid (Wop) May used the base, about 35 kilometres east of downtown Edmonton, when his company Commercial Airways won a contract in 1929 to deliver mail into the Arctic.
May’s son, Denny, who lives in Edmonton and will speak at the anniversary celebration, said one advantage to Cooking Lake was the gentle beaches that allowed pilots to pull equipment onto the land for servicing.
“They had to change from floats to wheels, so they actually taxied across the lake and put wheels on … It was a very good spot. There was also family living out in the area.”
Denny has been connected to the site virtually his entire life. His father flew his newborn son home from there to Fort McMurray four weeks after he was born in an Edmonton hospital in 1935.
He said Cooking Lake is an important part of Edmonton’s economic development.
“That’s where anybody heading north went out of … If they were doing mining or geological surveys, any supplies would come out of Edmonton,” he says.
“It was an early gateway to the north.”
Edmonton officials sought federal support in 1929 to make the area an offshoot of the city’s Blatchford Field as well as a landing strip along the Edmonton-Regina air route.
The feds were receptive, although they turned down a proposal to ease navigation by renaming the waterway Lake Edmonton.
In 1933 governments paid to build better docks, a hoist, a grass landing strip and an administration building at Cooking Lake, creating employment in the depths of the Depression by hiring hundreds of people to do the work with horses and plows.
The “air harbour” served as an American base for construction of the Alaska Highway during the Second World War, then repeatedly faced closure before it was taken over by Alberta Transportation in 1970.
Local airports came under the control of the Edmonton Regional Airports Authority in 1995, but after the authority looked again at shutting down Cooking Lake, the pilots who own the hangers on the property turned it into a volunteer-run facility in 2012.
Today, all the flight activity is on pavement — decades of falling water levels mean the lake that was once a major summer resort is no longer deep enough to land safely.
A wooden slip for hauling planes out of the drink and a causeway built by U.S. military forces in about two metres of water are now surrounded by dry scrub.
But Johannsson, who has been flying private planes out of Cooking Lake for 29 years, is optimistic about the airport’s future.
“We actually need multiple airports around Edmonton. No one airport is going to serve everyone,” he says.
“I don’t think there’s another airport in Canada that’s as big and as successful and as busy, run entirely by volunteers.”
Flying facts
• About 200 small planes are based at Cooking Lake Airport, which has 76 hangars and 26,000 annual aircraft movements (landings and takeoffs), approximately the same number as Lethbridge. The main users are people flying for business, pleasure or flight training.
• The airport expects to receive about 50 international arrivals a year after being approved last fall for direct flights from the United States under the Canada Border Services Agency’s CANPASS Program.
• Saturday’s anniversary celebration features pilot training seminars and free displays of such aircraft as a Second World War Hurricane fighter and a modern CH-146 Griffon helicopter, as well as a chance to see other airplanes in action. More information at cookinglakeairport.com.
The facility, described as Canada’s oldest operating public airport, traces its unofficial origins to 1926, after pilots who had used the area for years had erected docks, cranes and fuel shacks.
“You’re going into remote areas where there was literally nothing. One of the most natural landing spots was on lakes and rivers,” said Jim Johannsson, a member of the volunteer-run airport’s board of directors.
Famed First World War pilot Wilfrid (Wop) May used the base, about 35 kilometres east of downtown Edmonton, when his company Commercial Airways won a contract in 1929 to deliver mail into the Arctic.
May’s son, Denny, who lives in Edmonton and will speak at the anniversary celebration, said one advantage to Cooking Lake was the gentle beaches that allowed pilots to pull equipment onto the land for servicing.
“They had to change from floats to wheels, so they actually taxied across the lake and put wheels on … It was a very good spot. There was also family living out in the area.”
Denny has been connected to the site virtually his entire life. His father flew his newborn son home from there to Fort McMurray four weeks after he was born in an Edmonton hospital in 1935.
He said Cooking Lake is an important part of Edmonton’s economic development.
“That’s where anybody heading north went out of … If they were doing mining or geological surveys, any supplies would come out of Edmonton,” he says.
“It was an early gateway to the north.”
Edmonton officials sought federal support in 1929 to make the area an offshoot of the city’s Blatchford Field as well as a landing strip along the Edmonton-Regina air route.
The feds were receptive, although they turned down a proposal to ease navigation by renaming the waterway Lake Edmonton.
In 1933 governments paid to build better docks, a hoist, a grass landing strip and an administration building at Cooking Lake, creating employment in the depths of the Depression by hiring hundreds of people to do the work with horses and plows.
The “air harbour” served as an American base for construction of the Alaska Highway during the Second World War, then repeatedly faced closure before it was taken over by Alberta Transportation in 1970.
Local airports came under the control of the Edmonton Regional Airports Authority in 1995, but after the authority looked again at shutting down Cooking Lake, the pilots who own the hangers on the property turned it into a volunteer-run facility in 2012.
Today, all the flight activity is on pavement — decades of falling water levels mean the lake that was once a major summer resort is no longer deep enough to land safely.
A wooden slip for hauling planes out of the drink and a causeway built by U.S. military forces in about two metres of water are now surrounded by dry scrub.
But Johannsson, who has been flying private planes out of Cooking Lake for 29 years, is optimistic about the airport’s future.
“We actually need multiple airports around Edmonton. No one airport is going to serve everyone,” he says.
“I don’t think there’s another airport in Canada that’s as big and as successful and as busy, run entirely by volunteers.”
Flying facts
• About 200 small planes are based at Cooking Lake Airport, which has 76 hangars and 26,000 annual aircraft movements (landings and takeoffs), approximately the same number as Lethbridge. The main users are people flying for business, pleasure or flight training.
• The airport expects to receive about 50 international arrivals a year after being approved last fall for direct flights from the United States under the Canada Border Services Agency’s CANPASS Program.
• Saturday’s anniversary celebration features pilot training seminars and free displays of such aircraft as a Second World War Hurricane fighter and a modern CH-146 Griffon helicopter, as well as a chance to see other airplanes in action. More information at cookinglakeairport.com.
Cooking Lake Airport reaches out
Sherwood Park News
May 12, 2016
One local airport was a place of refuge for a couple of small planes coming from Fort McMurray.
Two planes from Fort McMurray Aviation landed at the South Cooking Lake Airport last week, and owner Wade Komarnisky said the planes also contained some evacuees.
“Due to the fires and the hazard, we elected to dispatch our planes to different locations just to avoid potential damage to the aircraft,” the 30-year Fort Mac resident said.
“We also had to get the crews out of the area, and for them, it worked out well, because they had family and friends that are close to the east end of Edmonton, and it worked out Cooking Lake was a suitable location for them.”
There was approximately half a dozen people who fled on the planes down south to safety.
“It was an escape route and (for the) security of the planes,” Komarnisky noted.
When the area close to the hanger in Fort Mac isn’t being threatened by wildfire, the company provides air charter and air taxi services, aside from regular service airlines. Last week, the remainder of the planes were sent to different locations.
“We’re helping out with some of the evacuees, we’re helping with the firefighting crew, replacing some of the firefighting crew, we’re helping some of the support for... relief efforts,” he said.
“Cooking Lake was a convenient community. We know people there and there were some services there that we could rely on and provide support to us in case something should happen or whatever the case may be.”
In addition, local pilot John Monroe was able to fly into the Albian Sands airport to evacuate four men from the fires.
Cooking Lake Aviation Services
A student from Cooking Lake Aviation Services, a flight school that is run out of the airport, was able to collect donations for Fort McMurray.
Nathan Posa sent out a Facebook request for items such as toiletries, toilet paper, diapers, baby food, clothes, pillows and medical supplies. He quickly received more than 300 pounds of donations, and was able to load two of the school’s Cessna 172s with the supplies and flew to Lac La Biche with a few instructors to drop them off.
Sherwood Park News
May 12, 2016
One local airport was a place of refuge for a couple of small planes coming from Fort McMurray.
Two planes from Fort McMurray Aviation landed at the South Cooking Lake Airport last week, and owner Wade Komarnisky said the planes also contained some evacuees.
“Due to the fires and the hazard, we elected to dispatch our planes to different locations just to avoid potential damage to the aircraft,” the 30-year Fort Mac resident said.
“We also had to get the crews out of the area, and for them, it worked out well, because they had family and friends that are close to the east end of Edmonton, and it worked out Cooking Lake was a suitable location for them.”
There was approximately half a dozen people who fled on the planes down south to safety.
“It was an escape route and (for the) security of the planes,” Komarnisky noted.
When the area close to the hanger in Fort Mac isn’t being threatened by wildfire, the company provides air charter and air taxi services, aside from regular service airlines. Last week, the remainder of the planes were sent to different locations.
“We’re helping out with some of the evacuees, we’re helping with the firefighting crew, replacing some of the firefighting crew, we’re helping some of the support for... relief efforts,” he said.
“Cooking Lake was a convenient community. We know people there and there were some services there that we could rely on and provide support to us in case something should happen or whatever the case may be.”
In addition, local pilot John Monroe was able to fly into the Albian Sands airport to evacuate four men from the fires.
Cooking Lake Aviation Services
A student from Cooking Lake Aviation Services, a flight school that is run out of the airport, was able to collect donations for Fort McMurray.
Nathan Posa sent out a Facebook request for items such as toiletries, toilet paper, diapers, baby food, clothes, pillows and medical supplies. He quickly received more than 300 pounds of donations, and was able to load two of the school’s Cessna 172s with the supplies and flew to Lac La Biche with a few instructors to drop them off.
Local Pilot helps out Ft. Mac friends
Sherwood Park News
May 18, 2016
In the midst of the chaos of the Fort McMurray fires, a local pilot was able to bring peace of mind to a group of men trapped up north.
John Monroe has a business up in the Fort Mac area, and lived there many years before moving to Sherwood Park. While he currently lives in the Park and has a plane parked at the South Cooking Lake Airport, he still owns a house up north as well.
“When all this happened with the fires and everything, it was traumatic, and we moved all our employees out and had a bunch of family show up at our house,” Monroe said.
“Basically… a couple days into it, I had some friends of mine that were trapped up north, because they couldn’t come south... Their wives wanted them home — they have kids.”
One of his friends did end up losing a house in Fort McMurray.
“They really wanted to get home bad,” Monroe said.
“They’d been up there working, and giving out fuel and stuff like that and helping out to people that were trapped up there. After three days it was time to come home... So, I jumped in my plane and went up and I grabbed them and came home. Three guys went to Edmonton, and two guys went to Calgary.”
“It was quite an adventure,” he continued.
“You went out and saw the smoke and the air traffic was crazy — there were planes everywhere. I basically did what I had to do, and they kept us quite far away. We were to the west of Fort McMurray, where most of the action was. You could see pictures of the smoke and people coming and going.”
When Monroe landed at the small Albian Sands airport, there were five 737s parked there.
“It was like the International — there was no way that there should be that many planes there,” he recalled.
“There was two private jets and two or three other smaller seven or eight-passenger planes as well. It was crazy. We got out of the plane and... I went inside and they had three terminals, which was just portables put together, but there was people everywhere, lined up... and animals, and dogs — it was out of a movie.”
As far as he knows, Monroe’s house in Fort McMurray is still standing.
“I haven’t been there yet, but there could be smoke damage or water damage, I don’t know,” he said.
His business — a commercial building and equipment in Gregoire, was also not lost in the fires.
Monroe said he was thankful to be able to help out.
“It was a pretty cool effort by everyone, and I was glad to be part of it,” he said.
“I was doing what I think was right. I enjoyed being part of the efforts, and when I went over there, I wished my plane could take more people, because there were so many people trapped.”
While things seem to have worked out well for Monroe and his family, he knows it’s not the same story for many other families.
“My heart goes out to the people that did lose and do have to start over,” he said.
Sherwood Park News
May 18, 2016
In the midst of the chaos of the Fort McMurray fires, a local pilot was able to bring peace of mind to a group of men trapped up north.
John Monroe has a business up in the Fort Mac area, and lived there many years before moving to Sherwood Park. While he currently lives in the Park and has a plane parked at the South Cooking Lake Airport, he still owns a house up north as well.
“When all this happened with the fires and everything, it was traumatic, and we moved all our employees out and had a bunch of family show up at our house,” Monroe said.
“Basically… a couple days into it, I had some friends of mine that were trapped up north, because they couldn’t come south... Their wives wanted them home — they have kids.”
One of his friends did end up losing a house in Fort McMurray.
“They really wanted to get home bad,” Monroe said.
“They’d been up there working, and giving out fuel and stuff like that and helping out to people that were trapped up there. After three days it was time to come home... So, I jumped in my plane and went up and I grabbed them and came home. Three guys went to Edmonton, and two guys went to Calgary.”
“It was quite an adventure,” he continued.
“You went out and saw the smoke and the air traffic was crazy — there were planes everywhere. I basically did what I had to do, and they kept us quite far away. We were to the west of Fort McMurray, where most of the action was. You could see pictures of the smoke and people coming and going.”
When Monroe landed at the small Albian Sands airport, there were five 737s parked there.
“It was like the International — there was no way that there should be that many planes there,” he recalled.
“There was two private jets and two or three other smaller seven or eight-passenger planes as well. It was crazy. We got out of the plane and... I went inside and they had three terminals, which was just portables put together, but there was people everywhere, lined up... and animals, and dogs — it was out of a movie.”
As far as he knows, Monroe’s house in Fort McMurray is still standing.
“I haven’t been there yet, but there could be smoke damage or water damage, I don’t know,” he said.
His business — a commercial building and equipment in Gregoire, was also not lost in the fires.
Monroe said he was thankful to be able to help out.
“It was a pretty cool effort by everyone, and I was glad to be part of it,” he said.
“I was doing what I think was right. I enjoyed being part of the efforts, and when I went over there, I wished my plane could take more people, because there were so many people trapped.”
While things seem to have worked out well for Monroe and his family, he knows it’s not the same story for many other families.
“My heart goes out to the people that did lose and do have to start over,” he said.
Airport ready to fly the coop
Sherwood park News
September 4, 2015
If provincial changes are not made to decrease taxes for Cooking Lake Airport, the airport is looking to become its own municipality.
“The taxes at South Cooking Lake have been going up by about 20 to 25 per cent a year,” said Jim Johannsson, the airport’s president.
“For the last seven years or so, the taxes have gone up by about 470 per cent. It’s caused a little bit of a consternation amongst the property owners out at the airport about affordability and tax fairness.”
In May, the airport made a pitch to Strathcona County council to ask to consider re-investing some of the tax proceeds taken from the airport, back into the airport.
“At the same time, we also did an appeal to the tax assessment review board, and the tax assessment review board came back to us a couple weeks ago and denied the appeal, but there were two parts to the reason for the denial,” Johannsson added.
“The first part is they did acknowledge — and we’re very pleased that they acknowledged — that there is a tax inequity at Cooking Lake airport compared to the county-owned Warren Thomas airport. The reason they denied the appeal is they said that the Cooking Lake Airport was not eligible for the same tax treatment as the county-owned airport.”
He said the airport has been in contact with Alberta Municipal Affairs in an attempt to clarify some points in the Municipal Government Act.
“We believe the tax assessment review board actually erred in their application of the statutes, but we can see where they got confused. That’s what we’re going back in to try and change the Municipal Governance Act to try and clarify it so there’s no confusion going forward,” Johannsson noted.
“If we’re not successful doing that — getting tax equity through changes to the Municipal Government Act, then our next step after that is to petition the minister of Municipal Affairs to have Cooking Lake Airport designated as a specialized municipality,” Johannsson continued.
“Essentially what that means is, the airport would no longer be a part of the county of Strathcona — it would stay physically there, but it would become its own municipality, basically, and it would collect its own taxes and fund its own operations through the collection of taxes on the airport.”
The board at the airport says it has been in contact with Municipal Affairs since the beginning of the year, and hopes to express that in the act, all public transportation infrastructure like the airport should be eligible for exemptions.
“The way the municipal government act is written — it says that airports that are either owned by a municipality or held under a permit from the municipality are eligible for a certain tax exemption,” Johannsson said.
“When the act was written, I don’t think anybody envisioned an airport as big and busy and as public as Cooking Lake would ever not be eligible for that kind of a tax exemption.”
He is hopeful that changes to MGA will come through this fall.
“It’s really about tax equity and fairness,” Johannsson said.
“They’re pursuing different avenues for their reasons,” said Wayne Minke, who is the county’s director of assessment and tax.
“We’re just enforcing the rules of the day and they’re advocating provincially for some change. That’s certainly their prerogative to do so.”
However, Minke said the taxes are warranted.
“To be fair, over seven years of 470 per cent — there has been some changes out there,” he said.
“That’s a large part of that. In other words, the airport has grown. They’ve added 20 new hanger lots and condominiums. During that interim, it’s like apples and oranges to suggest nothing’s changed at the airport and there’s been this huge tax increase. If there’s a change and you have growth in your inventory or on your property, by adding more parcels, of course there’s going to be a tax increase that goes along with that. That’s a good chunk of that number.”
Sherwood park News
September 4, 2015
If provincial changes are not made to decrease taxes for Cooking Lake Airport, the airport is looking to become its own municipality.
“The taxes at South Cooking Lake have been going up by about 20 to 25 per cent a year,” said Jim Johannsson, the airport’s president.
“For the last seven years or so, the taxes have gone up by about 470 per cent. It’s caused a little bit of a consternation amongst the property owners out at the airport about affordability and tax fairness.”
In May, the airport made a pitch to Strathcona County council to ask to consider re-investing some of the tax proceeds taken from the airport, back into the airport.
“At the same time, we also did an appeal to the tax assessment review board, and the tax assessment review board came back to us a couple weeks ago and denied the appeal, but there were two parts to the reason for the denial,” Johannsson added.
“The first part is they did acknowledge — and we’re very pleased that they acknowledged — that there is a tax inequity at Cooking Lake airport compared to the county-owned Warren Thomas airport. The reason they denied the appeal is they said that the Cooking Lake Airport was not eligible for the same tax treatment as the county-owned airport.”
He said the airport has been in contact with Alberta Municipal Affairs in an attempt to clarify some points in the Municipal Government Act.
“We believe the tax assessment review board actually erred in their application of the statutes, but we can see where they got confused. That’s what we’re going back in to try and change the Municipal Governance Act to try and clarify it so there’s no confusion going forward,” Johannsson noted.
“If we’re not successful doing that — getting tax equity through changes to the Municipal Government Act, then our next step after that is to petition the minister of Municipal Affairs to have Cooking Lake Airport designated as a specialized municipality,” Johannsson continued.
“Essentially what that means is, the airport would no longer be a part of the county of Strathcona — it would stay physically there, but it would become its own municipality, basically, and it would collect its own taxes and fund its own operations through the collection of taxes on the airport.”
The board at the airport says it has been in contact with Municipal Affairs since the beginning of the year, and hopes to express that in the act, all public transportation infrastructure like the airport should be eligible for exemptions.
“The way the municipal government act is written — it says that airports that are either owned by a municipality or held under a permit from the municipality are eligible for a certain tax exemption,” Johannsson said.
“When the act was written, I don’t think anybody envisioned an airport as big and busy and as public as Cooking Lake would ever not be eligible for that kind of a tax exemption.”
He is hopeful that changes to MGA will come through this fall.
“It’s really about tax equity and fairness,” Johannsson said.
“They’re pursuing different avenues for their reasons,” said Wayne Minke, who is the county’s director of assessment and tax.
“We’re just enforcing the rules of the day and they’re advocating provincially for some change. That’s certainly their prerogative to do so.”
However, Minke said the taxes are warranted.
“To be fair, over seven years of 470 per cent — there has been some changes out there,” he said.
“That’s a large part of that. In other words, the airport has grown. They’ve added 20 new hanger lots and condominiums. During that interim, it’s like apples and oranges to suggest nothing’s changed at the airport and there’s been this huge tax increase. If there’s a change and you have growth in your inventory or on your property, by adding more parcels, of course there’s going to be a tax increase that goes along with that. That’s a good chunk of that number.”
Cooking Lake Airport Tax Crunch
Sherwood Park News
June 22, 2015
Cooking Lake Airport is feeling the effects of increased taxation as a result of the Edmonton City Centre Airport closure.
In an effort to fix the issue, the Cooking Lake Airport Condominium Board presented a report to the Strathcona County Priorities Committee on Tuesday, June 16.
“We wanted to talk about a couple of issues, one of them is taxation,” said Jim Johannsson, president of Cooking Lake Airport Condominium Board, who presented the report. “There are a lot of constituents who live in this area and have property out at Cooking Lake Airport. You might have heard this past winter that there has been some concern about the tax levels out there.”
He also said that the condo board wants to discuss with Strathcona County council the consideration to reinvest some of the tax dollars back into the airport to make it more sustainable in the long run.
The airport is a federally regulated public airdrome and operates on a non-profit basis. It’s owned by the condominium association that was formed in 2012 when Edmonton Airports didn’t invest in the airport.
“We approached council in 2008 when Edmonton Airports decided that Cooking Lake Airport was no longer a part of its strategy,” Johannsson said. “Its plan was to devolve the airport, which meant either sell it to a third party, close it or try to get Strathcona County to take it over, pursuant to a 1995 agreement with Alberta Transportation when the Edmonton Airport Authority was formed.”
In 2008, Edmonton Airports did a strategic plan for the future and determined that Cooking Lake Airport was not going to be a part of the strategy going forward. Instead, it would focus efforts on Edmonton International Airport and Villeneuve Airport.
“Nobody makes any money on the airport except for a handful of businesses that operate commercial ventures on the airport,” Johannsson noted.
There are approximately 200 aircraft at the airport — more than at the Red Deer and Lethbridge airports combined. It is also one of the 10 largest and busiest airports in Alberta.
“When the tax assessment came out in January, we saw a lot of property owners out there contacting the airport management to see if there was something that could be done to work on the tax situation,” he stated.
Johannsson said the issue is that property taxes have been increasing. Since 2008, the county tax draw increased 470 per cent ($80,000 in 2008 to $376,000 in 2014). The airport’s annual operating costs are $153,000 per year.
“For people looking at properties in Cooking Lake, we are actually not the low cost airport in the region anymore,” he said. “Our model is an ownership model where people buy the property, they become a member of the condominium board, they pay condo fees and that funds the operation of the airport.”
A 3,000 square foot hanger at Cooking Lake Airport would cost $1,097 in condo fees, and the property taxes on that building would be more than $3,000 a month.
Johannsson noted that the condominium board would like to tackle the tax problem through a number of different ways, including amendments to the Municipal Government Act because of specific exemptions for airports and whether they would apply to the Cooking Lake Airport.
“We have filed a tax appeal to the tax assessment review board to help settle the question as to whether or not an airport like Cooking Lake should be eligible under the way the rules are written today,” he said.
“The airport is still a public airport even though we have taken it over from Edmonton Airports. This was not something we wanted to do,” he added. “We were forced into taking it over and it was not a welcomed decision. We looked very hard for opportunities to keep Edmonton Airports involved as the owner and operator of the airport, but it wasn’t successful.”
Strathcona County Mayor Roxanne Carr asked if the county Assessment and Tax department explained why there was a 470 per cent increase in taxes at the airport.
“It’s about property value assessment,” Johannsson stated, “So when the Edmonton City Centre Airport closed, we started to see the property values at Cooking Lake begin to increase over a year and as a result, the taxes went up.”
The condominium board has an appeal in front of the Tax Assessment and Review Board scheduled for Friday, June 26 regarding the assessment and the interpretation of legislation.
Sherwood Park News
June 22, 2015
Cooking Lake Airport is feeling the effects of increased taxation as a result of the Edmonton City Centre Airport closure.
In an effort to fix the issue, the Cooking Lake Airport Condominium Board presented a report to the Strathcona County Priorities Committee on Tuesday, June 16.
“We wanted to talk about a couple of issues, one of them is taxation,” said Jim Johannsson, president of Cooking Lake Airport Condominium Board, who presented the report. “There are a lot of constituents who live in this area and have property out at Cooking Lake Airport. You might have heard this past winter that there has been some concern about the tax levels out there.”
He also said that the condo board wants to discuss with Strathcona County council the consideration to reinvest some of the tax dollars back into the airport to make it more sustainable in the long run.
The airport is a federally regulated public airdrome and operates on a non-profit basis. It’s owned by the condominium association that was formed in 2012 when Edmonton Airports didn’t invest in the airport.
“We approached council in 2008 when Edmonton Airports decided that Cooking Lake Airport was no longer a part of its strategy,” Johannsson said. “Its plan was to devolve the airport, which meant either sell it to a third party, close it or try to get Strathcona County to take it over, pursuant to a 1995 agreement with Alberta Transportation when the Edmonton Airport Authority was formed.”
In 2008, Edmonton Airports did a strategic plan for the future and determined that Cooking Lake Airport was not going to be a part of the strategy going forward. Instead, it would focus efforts on Edmonton International Airport and Villeneuve Airport.
“Nobody makes any money on the airport except for a handful of businesses that operate commercial ventures on the airport,” Johannsson noted.
There are approximately 200 aircraft at the airport — more than at the Red Deer and Lethbridge airports combined. It is also one of the 10 largest and busiest airports in Alberta.
“When the tax assessment came out in January, we saw a lot of property owners out there contacting the airport management to see if there was something that could be done to work on the tax situation,” he stated.
Johannsson said the issue is that property taxes have been increasing. Since 2008, the county tax draw increased 470 per cent ($80,000 in 2008 to $376,000 in 2014). The airport’s annual operating costs are $153,000 per year.
“For people looking at properties in Cooking Lake, we are actually not the low cost airport in the region anymore,” he said. “Our model is an ownership model where people buy the property, they become a member of the condominium board, they pay condo fees and that funds the operation of the airport.”
A 3,000 square foot hanger at Cooking Lake Airport would cost $1,097 in condo fees, and the property taxes on that building would be more than $3,000 a month.
Johannsson noted that the condominium board would like to tackle the tax problem through a number of different ways, including amendments to the Municipal Government Act because of specific exemptions for airports and whether they would apply to the Cooking Lake Airport.
“We have filed a tax appeal to the tax assessment review board to help settle the question as to whether or not an airport like Cooking Lake should be eligible under the way the rules are written today,” he said.
“The airport is still a public airport even though we have taken it over from Edmonton Airports. This was not something we wanted to do,” he added. “We were forced into taking it over and it was not a welcomed decision. We looked very hard for opportunities to keep Edmonton Airports involved as the owner and operator of the airport, but it wasn’t successful.”
Strathcona County Mayor Roxanne Carr asked if the county Assessment and Tax department explained why there was a 470 per cent increase in taxes at the airport.
“It’s about property value assessment,” Johannsson stated, “So when the Edmonton City Centre Airport closed, we started to see the property values at Cooking Lake begin to increase over a year and as a result, the taxes went up.”
The condominium board has an appeal in front of the Tax Assessment and Review Board scheduled for Friday, June 26 regarding the assessment and the interpretation of legislation.
Cooking Lake Airport near Edmonton approved for international flights
Edmonton Journal
September 23, 2015
The Cooking Lake Airport east of Edmonton has been approved for flights from the United States, meaning private and corporate aircraft can fly straight to the community airport without stopping at a larger centre to clear customs first.
Airport president Jim Johannsson was quoted in a news release Wednesday saying the approval is “a huge win for local businesses and travellers arriving into the Edmonton region on private or corporate aircraft.”
Cooking Lake Airport is located about 15 kilometres east of Edmonton and is home to about 200 planes, including aircraft used for business, search and rescue and flight training.
Planes coming from the United States may now clear customs with Canada Border Services Agency’s CANPASS program.
In March, the Villeneuve Airport northwest of St. Albert was granted similar approval under the CANPASS program. Johannsson previously told the Journal he was concerned with the disparity between Alberta and other provinces in the number of CBSA entry points.
Edmonton Journal
September 23, 2015
The Cooking Lake Airport east of Edmonton has been approved for flights from the United States, meaning private and corporate aircraft can fly straight to the community airport without stopping at a larger centre to clear customs first.
Airport president Jim Johannsson was quoted in a news release Wednesday saying the approval is “a huge win for local businesses and travellers arriving into the Edmonton region on private or corporate aircraft.”
Cooking Lake Airport is located about 15 kilometres east of Edmonton and is home to about 200 planes, including aircraft used for business, search and rescue and flight training.
Planes coming from the United States may now clear customs with Canada Border Services Agency’s CANPASS program.
In March, the Villeneuve Airport northwest of St. Albert was granted similar approval under the CANPASS program. Johannsson previously told the Journal he was concerned with the disparity between Alberta and other provinces in the number of CBSA entry points.
New international airport serving the Edmonton region
September 23, 2015
EDMONTON – Cooking Lake Airport, located 15 kilometres east of Edmonton, is now approved for international flights arriving directly from the United States. Private and corporate aircraft can now fly directly into the Cooking Lake Airport and clear customs under the Canada Border Services Agency’s CANPASS Program.
“This is a huge win for local businesses and travellers arriving into the Edmonton region on private or corporate aircraft,” said Jim Johannsson, president of the Cooking Lake Airport. “With close to 200 aircraft based at Cooking Lake, the airport is one of the largest “home base” airports in Alberta. Aircraft operators can now fly directly into the airport without having to make unnecessary stops in Lethbridge or Calgary simply to clear customs, saving aircraft operators and their passengers significant time and money.”
Cooking Lake Airport is one of Alberta’s busiest “community” airports and has long been a crucial part of Alberta’s aeronautical transportation system. The airport has been serving Albertans since 1926 and is Canada’s oldest operating public airport. The ability to accept international arrivals under the CANPASS program is a significant milestone in the ongoing growth of the airport.
Brad Ferguson, president and CEO of Edmonton Economic Development added, “We are pleased with this service and the benefits that will come with direct arrivals from the U.S. into the Cooking Lake Airport. General Aviation is an important component of our economy as many businesses in the Edmonton region use small aircraft in very strategic ways to help serve their customers and reach distant markets. We appreciate the responsiveness of CBSA and the recognition that our market supports increased Customs services. Cooking Lake Airport now gives local businesses another fast and convenient option for clearing customs upon their return to Canada. This helps our economy to be more efficient and competitive.”
About Cooking Lake Airport
Cooking Lake Airport is located 15 kilometres east of Edmonton on Highway 14. Founded in 1926, the Airport is Canada’s oldest operating airport and is home to almost 200 aircraft. As a general aviation facility, the airport is used by private and corporate aircraft for business, flight training, search and rescue, charter, and tourism. The airport features a 3,000 foot paved runway, terminal building, maintenance building, and 95 individual hangar properties.
The airport is especially well suited for aircraft with less than 10 seats, which are ideal for small to medium sized businesses operating across western Canada and the northwestern United States. Current business users of the airport span a variety of industries such as; oil and gas, logistics/shipping, property development, tourism, construction, software development, legal, management consulting, engineering, retail, financial, aircraft maintenance, and automotive.
The airport was used by early bush pilots as a staging area for float plane flights into the North. Early pioneers include; Punch Dickens, Leigh Brintmel, Wop May, Roy Brown and Max Ward.
For additional information:
Jim Johannsson
(780) 920-9519
[email protected]
September 23, 2015
EDMONTON – Cooking Lake Airport, located 15 kilometres east of Edmonton, is now approved for international flights arriving directly from the United States. Private and corporate aircraft can now fly directly into the Cooking Lake Airport and clear customs under the Canada Border Services Agency’s CANPASS Program.
“This is a huge win for local businesses and travellers arriving into the Edmonton region on private or corporate aircraft,” said Jim Johannsson, president of the Cooking Lake Airport. “With close to 200 aircraft based at Cooking Lake, the airport is one of the largest “home base” airports in Alberta. Aircraft operators can now fly directly into the airport without having to make unnecessary stops in Lethbridge or Calgary simply to clear customs, saving aircraft operators and their passengers significant time and money.”
Cooking Lake Airport is one of Alberta’s busiest “community” airports and has long been a crucial part of Alberta’s aeronautical transportation system. The airport has been serving Albertans since 1926 and is Canada’s oldest operating public airport. The ability to accept international arrivals under the CANPASS program is a significant milestone in the ongoing growth of the airport.
Brad Ferguson, president and CEO of Edmonton Economic Development added, “We are pleased with this service and the benefits that will come with direct arrivals from the U.S. into the Cooking Lake Airport. General Aviation is an important component of our economy as many businesses in the Edmonton region use small aircraft in very strategic ways to help serve their customers and reach distant markets. We appreciate the responsiveness of CBSA and the recognition that our market supports increased Customs services. Cooking Lake Airport now gives local businesses another fast and convenient option for clearing customs upon their return to Canada. This helps our economy to be more efficient and competitive.”
About Cooking Lake Airport
Cooking Lake Airport is located 15 kilometres east of Edmonton on Highway 14. Founded in 1926, the Airport is Canada’s oldest operating airport and is home to almost 200 aircraft. As a general aviation facility, the airport is used by private and corporate aircraft for business, flight training, search and rescue, charter, and tourism. The airport features a 3,000 foot paved runway, terminal building, maintenance building, and 95 individual hangar properties.
The airport is especially well suited for aircraft with less than 10 seats, which are ideal for small to medium sized businesses operating across western Canada and the northwestern United States. Current business users of the airport span a variety of industries such as; oil and gas, logistics/shipping, property development, tourism, construction, software development, legal, management consulting, engineering, retail, financial, aircraft maintenance, and automotive.
The airport was used by early bush pilots as a staging area for float plane flights into the North. Early pioneers include; Punch Dickens, Leigh Brintmel, Wop May, Roy Brown and Max Ward.
For additional information:
Jim Johannsson
(780) 920-9519
[email protected]
EDMONTON – Like many business execs, Cam Robinson spends a lot of time in the air, travelling to the United States to see clients regularly.
But the co-owner of Edmonton-based Dyna-Flo Control Valve Services, a 22-year-old firm with roughly 100 employees that makes and repairs process control equipment for the energy sector, doesn’t fly commercial.
Instead, Robinson wings his way south in his Piper Meridian, a single-engine turboprop based at Cooking Lake Airport southeast of Edmonton, where the monthly hangar fees are far more affordable than those at Edmonton International Airport.
Robinson’s regular destinations don’t include megacities like Chicago. More often he heads to out-of-the-way spots like Minot, N.D., a city of about 50,000 that has boomed along with the prolific Bakken oilfields nearby.
After a day of meetings, he’ll climb back into his plane and head home to Cooking Lake. But that’s where things get complicated, and more time-consuming than he’d like.
Since the small general aviation airport isn’t designated as a CANPASS Airport of Entry by the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA), Robinson has to land at a CANPASS-approved airport somewhere else — such as Regina — before returning home.
“I should be able to do the return trip in one shot but because there is no CANPASS availability here, other than at Edmonton International, I’ve got to make an extra stop. That’s a significant inconvenience,” he complains.
“I hear it from other pilots here, too,” he says. “It would certainly stimulate business in the area’s smaller general aviation airports if it was more convenient.”
Hundreds of regular business flyers in the capital region face similar travel hassles. The Villeneuve Airport, northwest of St. Albert, where many private jets land, isn’t an authorized CANPASS site either.
In fact, Alberta has surprisingly few CANPASS airports compared to other provinces, despite the province’s economic heft and growing population. That makes travel between Alberta and points south of the border a major headache for frequent travellers.
Although Alberta Transportation Minister Wayne Drysdale and officials from Edmonton International Airport have pressed their case with the feds, seeking CANPASS status for the Cooking Lake and Villeneuve airports, they’ve had no success to date.
“We’re concerned that there is disproportionately low CANPASS availability in Alberta compared to other jurisdictions,” says Bob McManus, a spokesman for Alberta Transportation.
“There are nearly 460,000 Albertans for every CANPASS-designated airport, compared to an average of about half that — 250,000 — in B.C., Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario and Quebec.”
Although Drysdale recently asked Steven Blaney, minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness (which oversees the CBSA) to reconsider a recent decision to deny CANPASS status to Cooking Lake and Villeneuve, Drysdale’s plea fell on deaf ears.
“It has been suggested (by the CBSA) that there is no identifiable need for expanding CANPASS services in the Edmonton region or in northern Alberta, as the number of flights cleared in the province has declined,” says McManus.
“But we don’t think that’s the case. What may be happening is because those services are not currently available at the smaller airports in the area, aircraft are instead landing in Regina or B.C.” on their way back home, he says.
Traci Bednard, vice-president communications at Edmonton International Airport, expresses similar frustrations.
“General aviation is a critical component of the aviation business and we have a lot of general aviation flying in our region,” she says.
“We are very supportive of anything that makes that as convenient and efficient as possible. So we would support improved CANPASS processing for the general aviation community, and that extends beyond the international airport,” she adds.
“We have other general aviation airports that are critical and are primary drivers of general aviation, so that’s been the focus of our conversations with the CBSA.”
Jim Johannsson, president of the Cooking Lake Airport, says the access issue is only getting worse as aircraft technology improves.
“The technology of these planes has evolved a lot over the last 15 years, so we’re seeing a lot of users of the airport who have aircraft with good range,” he says.
“They fly in from places in the U.S. they never used to fly from, like Salt Lake, Las Vegas or Phoenix. We’re also working on a runway extension plan and if it happens we’ll be able to accommodate commercial traffic from anywhere in North America.”
For Johannsson, it comes down to fairness. In his view, Alberta just doesn’t get equitable treatment from the CBSA.
“It is quite alarming when you look at the disparity between what we’ve got in terms of CBSA entry points in Alberta compared to other provinces. Alberta in total only has 17 entry points (via highways, airports and docks) for the entire province, while B.C. has 93 and Nova Scotia has 40,” he notes.
“It doesn’t seem right that Alberta, with 12 per cent of Canada’s population and 19 per cent of Canada’s GDP, has barely two per cent of the CBSA entry points into Canada.”
For its part, the CBSA has had little to say about the matter, resorting to standard bureaucratese.
“The Edmonton International Airport is a CANPASS site which services CANPASS flights at the main terminal as well as at five other sites on airport grounds,” a CBSA spokesperson says by email.
“Small aircraft can and do fly direct from the U.S. into the Edmonton International Airport and can also clear through the regular CBSA process,” she notes.
“The CBSA is constantly re-evaluating our service levels and locations in the interest of serving our communities. Requests for new service are considered under the CBSA’s Air Services Policy Framework.
But the co-owner of Edmonton-based Dyna-Flo Control Valve Services, a 22-year-old firm with roughly 100 employees that makes and repairs process control equipment for the energy sector, doesn’t fly commercial.
Instead, Robinson wings his way south in his Piper Meridian, a single-engine turboprop based at Cooking Lake Airport southeast of Edmonton, where the monthly hangar fees are far more affordable than those at Edmonton International Airport.
Robinson’s regular destinations don’t include megacities like Chicago. More often he heads to out-of-the-way spots like Minot, N.D., a city of about 50,000 that has boomed along with the prolific Bakken oilfields nearby.
After a day of meetings, he’ll climb back into his plane and head home to Cooking Lake. But that’s where things get complicated, and more time-consuming than he’d like.
Since the small general aviation airport isn’t designated as a CANPASS Airport of Entry by the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA), Robinson has to land at a CANPASS-approved airport somewhere else — such as Regina — before returning home.
“I should be able to do the return trip in one shot but because there is no CANPASS availability here, other than at Edmonton International, I’ve got to make an extra stop. That’s a significant inconvenience,” he complains.
“I hear it from other pilots here, too,” he says. “It would certainly stimulate business in the area’s smaller general aviation airports if it was more convenient.”
Hundreds of regular business flyers in the capital region face similar travel hassles. The Villeneuve Airport, northwest of St. Albert, where many private jets land, isn’t an authorized CANPASS site either.
In fact, Alberta has surprisingly few CANPASS airports compared to other provinces, despite the province’s economic heft and growing population. That makes travel between Alberta and points south of the border a major headache for frequent travellers.
Although Alberta Transportation Minister Wayne Drysdale and officials from Edmonton International Airport have pressed their case with the feds, seeking CANPASS status for the Cooking Lake and Villeneuve airports, they’ve had no success to date.
“We’re concerned that there is disproportionately low CANPASS availability in Alberta compared to other jurisdictions,” says Bob McManus, a spokesman for Alberta Transportation.
“There are nearly 460,000 Albertans for every CANPASS-designated airport, compared to an average of about half that — 250,000 — in B.C., Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario and Quebec.”
Although Drysdale recently asked Steven Blaney, minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness (which oversees the CBSA) to reconsider a recent decision to deny CANPASS status to Cooking Lake and Villeneuve, Drysdale’s plea fell on deaf ears.
“It has been suggested (by the CBSA) that there is no identifiable need for expanding CANPASS services in the Edmonton region or in northern Alberta, as the number of flights cleared in the province has declined,” says McManus.
“But we don’t think that’s the case. What may be happening is because those services are not currently available at the smaller airports in the area, aircraft are instead landing in Regina or B.C.” on their way back home, he says.
Traci Bednard, vice-president communications at Edmonton International Airport, expresses similar frustrations.
“General aviation is a critical component of the aviation business and we have a lot of general aviation flying in our region,” she says.
“We are very supportive of anything that makes that as convenient and efficient as possible. So we would support improved CANPASS processing for the general aviation community, and that extends beyond the international airport,” she adds.
“We have other general aviation airports that are critical and are primary drivers of general aviation, so that’s been the focus of our conversations with the CBSA.”
Jim Johannsson, president of the Cooking Lake Airport, says the access issue is only getting worse as aircraft technology improves.
“The technology of these planes has evolved a lot over the last 15 years, so we’re seeing a lot of users of the airport who have aircraft with good range,” he says.
“They fly in from places in the U.S. they never used to fly from, like Salt Lake, Las Vegas or Phoenix. We’re also working on a runway extension plan and if it happens we’ll be able to accommodate commercial traffic from anywhere in North America.”
For Johannsson, it comes down to fairness. In his view, Alberta just doesn’t get equitable treatment from the CBSA.
“It is quite alarming when you look at the disparity between what we’ve got in terms of CBSA entry points in Alberta compared to other provinces. Alberta in total only has 17 entry points (via highways, airports and docks) for the entire province, while B.C. has 93 and Nova Scotia has 40,” he notes.
“It doesn’t seem right that Alberta, with 12 per cent of Canada’s population and 19 per cent of Canada’s GDP, has barely two per cent of the CBSA entry points into Canada.”
For its part, the CBSA has had little to say about the matter, resorting to standard bureaucratese.
“The Edmonton International Airport is a CANPASS site which services CANPASS flights at the main terminal as well as at five other sites on airport grounds,” a CBSA spokesperson says by email.
“Small aircraft can and do fly direct from the U.S. into the Edmonton International Airport and can also clear through the regular CBSA process,” she notes.
“The CBSA is constantly re-evaluating our service levels and locations in the interest of serving our communities. Requests for new service are considered under the CBSA’s Air Services Policy Framework.
RNAV instrument approaches promoted to Canada Air Pilot
Folks who file IFR will be excited to know the two RNAV approaches at the Cooking Lake Airport were promoted from the RCAP to the CAP in the June 25, 2015 update cycle. This means the approaches are now available for use by any instrument rated pilot and not just those affiliated with the airport.
Canada's youngest licensed pilot earns his wings at CEZ3
September 17, 2014
On his 17th birthday, Evan Miller became Canada youngest licensed pilot. Check out the TV coverage of this remarkable young man's achievement!
September 17, 2014
On his 17th birthday, Evan Miller became Canada youngest licensed pilot. Check out the TV coverage of this remarkable young man's achievement!
Pilot club teaches children to soar
Sherwood Park News
August 25, 2014
South Cooking Lake Airport had a soaring success this weekend as it saw close to a couple hundred kids take to the sky.
“The event is called the COPA for Kids, and it’s put on by the Canadian Owners and Pilots Association, and more in particular, our own membership club,” explained COPA Kids coordinator Dion Beier.
“Essentially what happens is, there’s volunteer pilots who are COPA members. They have their own aircraft, and we all participate in a day where we take up kids for a short 20 to 25 minute airplane rides, over the town, and prior to that we actually give them a short little ground school or ground briefing of what’s going on and how the airplane basically works,” he continued, adding that the terminology used was all kid-friendly.
Approximately 175 kids, 10 airplanes and its pilots took part in Saturday’s events, which took place from 9 a.m. until 5 p.m.
“We like to try and give kids the opportunity to get involved in the aviation industry who might not have otherwise have had the opportunity in the past,” Beier said.
“It’s all in the attempt to get them interested in aviation and possibility in a career down the road or at least take it upon themselves to just get their private license. It’s basically (to) experience what it’s like to be flying an airplane and see a little bit of what goes on behind the lights.”
The event is in its fourth year, and Beier noted that previous years have seen upwards of 400 kids take part.
“I think it’s important just to basically to show kids how exciting it is. It’s obviously put on by all other volunteer pilots who themselves are very positive and enthusiastic about the industry and want to share that to other kids themselves. Overall, the experience is pretty awesome on both sides with the pilots and the volunteers on the ground who put the event together and also by the kids that get to experience it,” he said.
Each plane could hold either one or three children and the pilot, with the kids boarding during their respective time slots, which families signed up for beforehand.
More information about COPA as well as the event can be found by visiting copaedmonton.ca.
Sherwood Park News
August 25, 2014
South Cooking Lake Airport had a soaring success this weekend as it saw close to a couple hundred kids take to the sky.
“The event is called the COPA for Kids, and it’s put on by the Canadian Owners and Pilots Association, and more in particular, our own membership club,” explained COPA Kids coordinator Dion Beier.
“Essentially what happens is, there’s volunteer pilots who are COPA members. They have their own aircraft, and we all participate in a day where we take up kids for a short 20 to 25 minute airplane rides, over the town, and prior to that we actually give them a short little ground school or ground briefing of what’s going on and how the airplane basically works,” he continued, adding that the terminology used was all kid-friendly.
Approximately 175 kids, 10 airplanes and its pilots took part in Saturday’s events, which took place from 9 a.m. until 5 p.m.
“We like to try and give kids the opportunity to get involved in the aviation industry who might not have otherwise have had the opportunity in the past,” Beier said.
“It’s all in the attempt to get them interested in aviation and possibility in a career down the road or at least take it upon themselves to just get their private license. It’s basically (to) experience what it’s like to be flying an airplane and see a little bit of what goes on behind the lights.”
The event is in its fourth year, and Beier noted that previous years have seen upwards of 400 kids take part.
“I think it’s important just to basically to show kids how exciting it is. It’s obviously put on by all other volunteer pilots who themselves are very positive and enthusiastic about the industry and want to share that to other kids themselves. Overall, the experience is pretty awesome on both sides with the pilots and the volunteers on the ground who put the event together and also by the kids that get to experience it,” he said.
Each plane could hold either one or three children and the pilot, with the kids boarding during their respective time slots, which families signed up for beforehand.
More information about COPA as well as the event can be found by visiting copaedmonton.ca.
