Why Toronto’s Airport Was Built Around a Cemetery

For decades, Toronto’s Pearson International Airport had a bizarre secret hiding in plain sight: a 19th-century cemetery, fenced off and surrounded by active taxiways.

This wasn’t a memorial or museum — it was the actual resting place of the early settlers who founded the now-vanished village of Elmbank. As jets roared overhead, their graves remained untouched for over half a century — until safety concerns forced a difficult decision.

In this episode, Ryan Socash unpacks how a Catholic cemetery ended up in the middle of Canada’s busiest airport, why it remained there for so long, and what finally led to its emotional and controversial relocation.

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