Commentaire 23 – commentaires et rétroaction

Michael Anderson

My name is Michael Anderson, and I'm a public servant with an interest in elections and election maps, who currently splits his time between Ottawa and my hometown of Toronto. I am closely following your Commission's progress in establishing new boundaries for Ontario, and I would like to propose a naming scheme which I believe would most fairly represent the centre of the universe.

In developing this naming scheme, I have followed four rules:

1. Consistent naming. Within this scheme, each district's name is in the form [City] [Landmark], without a dash. This reflects the practice which the Commissions for other provinces have now repeatedly used for designing districts in Winnipeg, Calgary, Edmonton, Vancouver, and other Canadian cities outside of Quebec. By ensuring the city's name is front-loaded, we can help all Canadians better understand where a district is, and who the member represents.

   By landmark, I mean a unique local feature. This may be a specific site, but it may also be a prominent neighbourhood, an established nickname, etc. Something that most people who lived in its vicinity would recognize and associate with their part of the city.

2. Indigenous alternatives. I am very sympathetic to the Commission's effort to Indigenize your proposed map by offering an Indigenous placename for Taiaiako'n—High Park, and I wish to propose taking it further. Specifically, I recommend that the Commission issue an annex to their report incorporating an additional Indigenous name for every Toronto district. While this annex would have no legal standing, it would nevertheless serve to partially Indigenize the process. By creating a set of formal-yet-unofficial Indigenous alternatives, the Commission would be sending a powerful signal of acceptance and inclusion while upholding its responsibility to colour within the lines.

   Given the time constraints pressing upon your Commission, I have stuck with a simple one-for-one translation of the city names only. This is best understood as a half-measure, with it is my hope that this half-measure nevertheless improves upon the status quo, and may set a precedent for future work.

3. No directional names and no street names. In a city of Toronto's size, labels like centre or south carry very little meaning. Likewise, street names are often confusing, especially as they often extend far beyond a district's own boundaries, as happens with Davenport, Eglinton, St. Clair, Lawrence, etc. I propose eliminating these altogether, and focusing instead on landmarks solidly within the communities in question.

4. Invoke the Quebec rule in order to avoid the generic. In cases where there a district is simply too diverse to be usefully described in reference to a single landmark (where Centre really is the best compromise), I have addressed this by invoking Quebec's well-established practice of naming districts after prominent figures. In this case, I have limited myself to figures who have a physical presence in the district (through a permanent fixture memorializing them), and those who lived and worked in the district during their lifetimes.

With that out of the way, here is my proposed naming scheme.

I am, of course, at your disposal in the event that you have any questions about this proposal, and I do wish you and the Commission the best of luck in clearing the final few hurdles of what has doubtless been an almighty struggle.

- Michael Anderson