06/05/2026
🚩🚩🚩 A WARNING TO MILTON TOWN COUNCIL AND HALTON REGION 🚩🚩🚩
From Halton Community Impact Watch
Milton is not an industrial community. It never has been. It sits at the foot of a UNESCO World Biosphere Reserve, surrounded by conservation lands that draw visitors from across the country and the world. Our residents chose this community precisely because of its air, its trails, its outdoor spaces, and its quality of life.
That is now under direct and serious threat.
The CN Milton Logistics Hub has been forced onto this community through federal jurisdiction, bypassing local planning entirely. It will generate 1,600 heavy diesel truck trips per day on Milton's local roads. This alone is an enormous burden on a residential community with 12 schools and a hospital nearby.
⚠️ Now we are facing a worst-case-scenario. A CN partner named Matthews Real Estate is proposing to rezone prime agricultural land directly adjacent to the CN hub to build 11 industrial warehouse buildings totalling 8.7 million square feet.
At a recent community meeting with representatives from both Matthews and CN, it was confirmed on the record that combined operations at this location could generate between 5,000 and 6,000 heavy truck trips per day at this location.
This cannot be permitted. OUR POLITICIANS MUST PROTECT US.
🚛 The science on diesel truck emissions is a stark warning.
The World Health Organization classifies diesel exhaust as a Group 1 carcinogen, the same category as asbestos and benzene. Heavy diesel trucks are the dominant source of nitrogen dioxide and fine particulate matter from transportation.
PM2.5 particles are small enough to pe*****te deep into lung tissue and enter the bloodstream. Nitrogen dioxide inflames airways, worsens asthma, and contributes to cardiovascular disease.
A peer-reviewed study tracking children between the ages of 10 and 18 found that exposure to current levels of fine particulate matter and nitrogen dioxide caused chronic, measurable deficits in lung development that persisted into adulthood. Milton has 12 schools near this area. These are not statistics. These are our children.
A NASA-funded study published in 2024, analyzing 150,000 warehouse facilities across North America using satellite data, found that nitrogen dioxide concentrations near warehouse logistics hubs were nearly 20 per cent higher than in surrounding areas, and that the gap widened significantly as truck volumes and loading dock density increased.
❗️The buildings are not the problem. The trucks are.
☠️ The cumulative effect here is deadly.
Milton's geography makes this worse, not better. The Niagara Escarpment, the same landform that defines Halton's identity and anchors our conservation lands, acts as a physical barrier that traps ground-level pollution in the lower community. The documented consequence of permitting industrial and heavy truck activity to accumulate adjacent to an escarpment in a residential community is severe and lasting harm to public health.
🛑 This must stop here.
Halton Community Impact Watch calls on Milton Town Council and Halton Region to adopt the following position as standing policy:
Any future truck-intensive facility-- warehouse, logistics, distribution, intermodal, or otherwise--must be located in established industrial zones with direct highway access. Not adjacent to residential neighbourhoods. Not adjacent to schools or hospitals. Not adjacent to conservation lands. Not at the foot of the Niagara Escarpment. On highways, where trucks belong.
The Matthews Milton Link application has not yet been formally filed. Council retains full authority to deny both the Official Plan Amendment and the Zoning By-law Amendment this project requires. That authority must be exercised.
Milton's conservation lands, its trail systems, its outdoor spaces, and the air our residents and our children breathe--these issues are not negotiable.
Fellow Halton residents at large, and Milton residents especially, this is the most important moment for us to come together to protect our health and our future.
📣 WHAT CAN YOU DO RIGHT NOW?
1. SHARE this post
2. Write to or call the Town of Milton at https://www.milton.ca
3. Write to and/or call Halton Region at https://www.halton.ca/
4. Write to our Member of Provincial Parliament Zee Hamid at https://zeehamid.com/
5. Send us your comments at questions [email protected]
Halton Community Impact Watch Milton RAIL, Milton Residents Affected by Intermodal Lines Kristina Tesser Derksen Adam van Koeverden Marianne Meed Ward
