A newly released Transport Canada report has revived a 40-year controversy, if briefly, over the site of southern Ontario's next big airport. 

The report says the Pickering lands, more than 7,000 acres expropriated in the early 1970s and still laying decayed and vacant today, offer the so-called Golden Horseshoe the best option for a replacement or adjunct to Pearson International, about 40 km to the west.

The children and grandchildren of the original People Over Planes protesters of the 1970s still keep anti-airport signs in their basements to be brought out on occasions like this. Land Over Landings is the latest group's call sign and they enjoyed a burst of limelight with the release of the report.

The future need for Pickering is based on what has become the inevitable fact that Pearson will be unable to handle the projected growth of passenger volume in the Greater Toronto Area. According to the numbers that created the Pickering debate in the first place, Pearson has outlasted the projections by a dozen years.

Still, TC thinks Pickering will be needed by 2027 and promises to flesh out that opinion in future reports.