Very few airports in Canada are named after aviation pioneers. The Canadian government has a perfect opportunity to change that at Edmonton International Airport.

We the undersigned call on Edmonton International Airport to be renamed after Max Ward. He was the founder of Wardair, the third-largest Canadian airline in the late 1980s. He was a proud Edmontonian, airline founder, bush pilot, member of the Canadian Aviation Hall of Fame, member of the Alberta Order of Excellence, honourary doctor from four universities, and Officer of the Order of Canada. Ward died in November 2020 at the age of 98.

We believe it would be fitting to rename Edmonton International Airport to Edmonton Max Ward International Airport, to be referred to colloquially as Edmonton-Ward International. This would follow a similar nomenclature to other Canadian airports such as Toronto-Pearson and Montreal-Trudeau, both named after deceased politicians.

We humbly ask the board of Edmonton Airports to consider a name change.