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Geoff Kettel and Carol Burtin Fripp
Leaside Residents Association

Please find attached the Leaside Residents Association submission to the Federal Electoral Commission for Ontario. This is a more fulsome description of our issues and recommendations pursuant to our presentation to the virtual public meeting on September 29th.

Thank you for the opportunity to participate.

Best regards

Geoff Kettel Co-President with Carol Burtin Fripp,
Leaside Residents Association

ATTACHMENT:

Submission to Federal Electoral Boundaries Commission for Ontario Leaside Residents Association

The Leaside Residents Association (LRA) works in a spirit of cooperation to maintain and enhance the quality of life and the continued well-being of Leaside residents.

Leaside was laid out as a "model garden suburb" for the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1912 by Frederick Todd, a landscape architect who also designed Mount Royal (Montreal) and Port Moody (Vancouver) only eight years after Welwyn Garden City in England. The Town of Leaside was incorporated in 1913, and was an independent municipality until 1967, when it was amalgamated with the Township of East York to form the Borough of East York. In 1998 the six municipalities in Toronto were amalgamated to form the City of Toronto. Leaside's story is well documented in Jane Pitfield's book "Leaside", published in 1999.

Today, Leaside is experiencing significant growth driven by the Eglinton Crosstown LRT but it continues to operate as an integrated community with education, shopping, religious life, etc. It even has a community newspaper, Leaside Life, published monthly.

At a federal level, Leaside has been part of Don Valley West Federal Riding since 1979, and successive Federal Boundary Commissions have maintained the boundaries of Leaside within the larger electoral entity. That is until this one!! The 2022 Federal Boundaries Commission for Ontario is proposing that Leaside be split between two different federal ridings - Don Valley West and St. Clair - Mount Pleasant: North Leaside, East Leaside (east of Laird, south of Eglinton) and Leaside Business Park, would be in Don Valley West riding, and South Leaside (Bayview to Laird, south of Eglinton) together with Bennington Heights, would be in St. Clair-Mount Pleasant Riding (which extends west and south as far as Oakwood and Davenport).

We wish to make two key points:

Leaside should remain whole

The LRA posits that Leaside is a "whole community of interest"; and should be

maintained as an electoral community. Leaside has been locally governed as a single entity over most of its history, and represented federally as a single entity for most of that time as well. It is not that Leaside should "stand alone" but that it should "remain whole".
Provincial actions impacting Toronto electoral boundaries make maintenance of "whole Leaside" even more essential

Since this is a review of the federal electoral boundaries one might expect that it would only affect the federal riding boundaries. But in fact the current federal electoral boundaries are also the provincial and municipal boundaries in Toronto. Premier Kathleen Wynne's government realigned the provincial boundaries with the federal boundaries. And uniquely for Toronto, the federal electoral boundaries extend down to the municipal wards. Recall that in 2018, in the middle of the municipal election campaign, Premier Ford imposed the federal boundaries on the City of Toronto, reducing the number of municipal wards from 47 to 25.

Now the Federal Electoral Boundaries Commission for Ontario is proposing a further reduction to 24 ridings which will translate to 24 municipal wards in Toronto! Most residents think the City Councillor is over-worked given the increased size of the wards resulting from the reduction to 25 wards. The Commission recommendation of 24 wards in Toronto would exacerbate this situation!

So splitting Leaside among two federal ridings has additional negative implications as a result of the provincial actions described above. Leaside would have to deal with two councillors, but also potentially two separate Community Councils! Not to mention two separate provincial ridings. This complicates and separates representation and the operations of government in a way that hinders the efficient and effective delivery of programs and services, and leads to confusion among residents as to responsibilities.

Conclusion

We request that the Commission reconsider its proposals in regard to Leaside and ensure that Leaside in its entirety should be included in one electoral district to facilitate the efficient addressing of its emerging needs and aspirations at ALL levels of government.

Respectfully submitted,

Geoff Kettel and Carol Burtin Fripp,
Co-Presidents,
Leaside Residents Association
October 5, 2022

Attachments