Comment 263 – comments and feedback

Kevin Thatcher

Taiaiako'n—High Park

As a resident born in Parkdale I am extremally upset that the term Parkdale is suggested to be eliminated from the riding name. With a family history going back to my grandfather building and living in the area, the name has been around from its days as a village. This does not mean I object to Taiaiako'n being included in the riding name, but no education has been delivered by the elections commission to those of us with little knowledge of early history of the area. Fortunately, my daughter is in doctorate studies in Treaty Constitutionalism and has given me some details on the site of this village. She and other friends with strong interest in recognizing indigenous heritage can't understand why High Park would be kept at all. The renaming suggested would be for an area west of Parkside Drive and the current name which recognizes the village east of Parkside would be abandoned- a loss of history.

Especially concerning is that there appears to be no way to find out how the idea for the new riding name evolved. I am advised that there is no opportunity under Access to Information legislation to learn of the process. I am advised that Indigenous leaders in the area were not consulted on using their name and finally, everything in the process of this commission refers to boundaries and one must find out that the commission also seeks feed bank on renaming suggestions. Once published, it appeared the name change was complete. I only found out about the name change when looking up Parkdale in the publication sent out, and could not find the riding I live in.

With the lack of explanation on how the suggested new name was arrived at, the lack of consultation with indigenous groups and the almost non-existent advance information that the boundaries process also includes dealing with riding name changes- the renaming process comes across as secretive and borders on sneaky. Hopefully, the commission name will change for the future to recognize the renaming process and/ or separate meetings on renaming ridings will be held.

Lastly, when I followed up on my suggestion that renaming be better advertised, I was advised that plenty of people figured it out and the commission was satisfied with the process. To that I say, noting my concerns above, that such satisfaction with a flawed process is a concern.

Thank you for considering my input. I look forward to seeing what the final name of Parkdale- High Park will be. Eliminating Parkdale will cause me to feel that the riding name would not represent me and thus future voting at all levels would stop until the riding name contains Parkdale.

Kevin Thatcher