Commentaire 19 – commentaires et rétroaction

Don and Anne Dewees

We wish to comment on the Ontario redistribution that was published in the press in August. We live in Toronto in what is now the Parkdale-High Park district. We are content with the boundaries proposed for our district, and for Toronto more generally. They appear to be fair and free from political bias.

We are dismayed by the name change from Parkdale-High Park to Taiaiako’n-High Park. We have no idea how to pronounce Taiaiako’n, nor does anyone we know. It appears to involve a glottal stop which is not used in English or French, so it is not a sound most residents of the area can easily make. Since hardly anyone can say it, we expect that if this name is used, people will just refer to the riding as High Park or maybe T-High Park. People will fail to find the riding in alphabetical listings because nobody will look for a T-word. In addition, it is not a name that is familiar to people in this area. We are familiar with names of some of the peoples who have long inhabited this area: the Anishnabeg of the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nations, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee, the Huron-Wendat, and the Petun First Nations. But nobody is going to associate this area with the word Taiaiako’n. It means nothing to residents here.

We understand the desire to make some acknowledgement of Aboriginal presence in Ontario. In church every Sunday, we repeat a land acknowledgement. There are land acknowledgements elsewhere. But assigning a name to a federal riding that cannot be pronounced by 99% of the residents of that riding (or most Ontarians generally) and that is not known by residents as having any connection to the riding seems misguided. It will lead to confusion and perhaps resentment.

We urge you to re-think the renaming of this riding and use a name that residents will recognize as identifying this area and is easy to pronounce. Parkdale-High Park is perfectly descriptive and easy to say. Perhaps there are other equally appropriate names. Taiaiako’n meets neither criterion.

Yours sincerely,

Don and Ann Dewees