Commentaire 159 – commentaires et rétroaction

Will Fripp
2004 Ontario Boundary Commission Secretary

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The Honourable Justice Lynne C. Leitch,
Dr. Karen Bird,
and Professor Peter Loewen
c/o Ms. Paula Buddy
Commission Secretary
Federal Electoral Boundaries Commission for Ontario
PO Box 37018 Southdale
London, Ontario N6E 3T3

Re: St. Clair – Mount Pleasant

Dear Commissioners,

I am writing as a resident of Leaside, a historic neighbourhood which under your present proposal is to be divided into two separate electoral districts, those of Don Valley West and St. Clair – Mount Pleasant.

I also write as the former Commission Secretary for the Federal Electoral Boundaries Commission For Ontario (created after the 2001 census).

In 2002/2003, I was responsible for all administration of the Ontario Commission and liaison with Elections Canada. I reported to Mr. Justice Douglas Lissaman, Vice-Chair Andrew Sancton of the University of Western Ontario and Professor Janice Hiebert of Queen's University. Our Commission redrew the federal riding map for Ontario based on the 2001 census. I organized and ran 22 in-person public hearings in 16 Ontario cities.

I recognize the pressures you are under to redraw boundaries with equitable population representation.

Your Commission will be aware, as ours certainly was, that you are not just drawing new federal boundaries. These boundaries will almost certainly be duplicated by the provincial boundaries, and, since the 1997 provincial amalgamation City of Toronto, municipal boundaries have also been drawn using the federal boundaries.

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When the Representation 2004 Commission was struck, all Commissions and their secretaries were assembled in Ottawa to meet its members, hear the announcement of the census numbers, and find out how many districts we would draw to match the population shifts.

One message stressed to us by the Chief Electoral Officer and assembled speakers was that we should not divide Communities and/or Communities of Interest where possible. One of those speakers was Professor John Courtney of the University of Saskatchewan whose then-new book Commissioned Ridings was likely recommended reading to all Commission members now.

Community of interest, as John Courtney defined it, "is based on the recognition and acceptance of the idea that a geographically concentrated group shares a certain attribute in common." He offered four specific reasons for the importance of considering community of interest: first, communities whose "interests" might be divided among two or more districts; second, large numbers of people identify with geographically defined communities; third, community of interest can enhance citizen involvement in politics; and fourth, parliamentary electoral districts are frequently constructed to accord with local district boundaries.

I have several concerns about your recommendations as regard the community in which I live, Leaside.

St. Clair – Mount Pleasant has no Community of Interest

The proposed St. Clair – Mount Pleasant riding creates an extremely wide east-west district that has no east-west community of interest.

The Commission also uses artificial boundaries (Eglinton Avenue and St. Clair Avenue) rather than geographic boundaries, which splits Leaside and other newly-divided neighbourhoods such as Moore Park and Deer Park.

The proposed St. Clair – Mount Pleasant/Don Valley West alignment divides a Leaside which is naturally aligned north-south.

Leaside's natural interests and partnerships have generally been with connected communities like Davisville, South Eglinton, Thorncliffe Park and East York (fostered by its inclusion in the Borough of East York from 1967 to 1997). While Leaside is aligned with its immediate neighbourhoods east of Yonge, Leaside's major directional links are north-south.

The proposed electoral district of St. Clair – Mount Pleasant (Map 20) breaks up communities, neighbourhoods and communities of interest, and will make it harder for those communities to deal with issues as cohesive communities and to advocate for the preservation of their neighbourhoods.

Division of Leaside

South Leaside (the area south of Eglinton Avenue and west of Laird Drive) is removed from Don Valley West, and placed in St. Clair – Mount Pleasant.

From a satellite distance, a 4-lane Eglinton Avenue may look like a natural dividing point. It isn't.

In fact, Eglinton Avenue has been a source of joint frustration to both North and South Leaside, regarding traffic encroachment, vehicle speeds, transit, building development, many of which have been exacerbated by the LRT construction on Eglinton Avenue.

Leaside is a planned community named after William Lea who settled in what is now South Leaside in the 19th century. It was incorporated as a planned town in 1913, had its own airport from 2017 until the 1930s, and Leaside expanded rapidly as residences west of Laird Drive were built for workers of the Leaside Industrial Area which was a major source of both aluminum and WWII armaments. I remember a number of my former neighbours who had worked in the industrial area and still lived in Leaside.

Schools stream from Elementary to Middle School to High School within Leaside.

In 1967, Leaside was amalgamated as a whole into the township of East York as Ward 4 of the Borough of East York, until the Borough was eliminated by provincial amalgamation in 1997.

Before being Commission Secretary, I was also Executive Assistant to the Metro Councillor who represented East York for the two years before a previous Commission finally reunited Leaside into one federal district. In those two years I received numerous constituent calls complaining about jurisdictional confusion when different levels of government did not align to their communities, in Leaside, Governor's Bridge and in East York.

In 1996/7 I worked with Don Valley West MP John Godfrey and representatives from all levels of government to establish an internet hub in the industrial area, a project called the New Media Village. This project died when amalgamation eliminated East York in 1997 and the Smart Centre replaced major factories with a shopping plaza. The current shopping district on Laird Drive has expanded since then as had residential encroachment onto industrial lands east of Laird Drive and south of Eglinton Avenue, which has pushed industry out of the area.

If you input Leaside addresses into online delivery software, those used by Canada Post still place Leaside in East York. While I have noticed this Commission has eliminated usage of the old municipal boundaries, that does not eliminate the personal affinities as outlined by Dr. Courtney earlier.

Major TTC bus routes in Leaside include the South Leaside 88 route, which travels from Thorncliffe Park to St. Clair Station; the Leaside 56 route connects between Eglinton Station and Donlands Station. From Davisville station are the Bayview 11 route that connects the neighbourhood to Sunnybrook Hospital via Bayview Avenue, as well as the more recent 28 Bayview South bus which travels from the Brickworks site (once located within the Borough of East York).

Within the proposed St. Clair – Mount Pleasant riding, Yonge Street, Avenue Road and Bathurst Street form their own significant cultural lines. Between these streets the neighbourhoods within have their own north-south communities of interest, and no relationship with Leaside.

Impacts on Leaside

Leaside as a community faces many issues on which it -as a community- works for together. Under the Commission's proposed Don Valley West / St. Clair – Mount Pleasant configuration, Leaside will need to build a new bureaucracy of separate political consultation, consulting two representatives from each of the Federal, Provincial, and Municipal levels, per joint issue.

Numerous issues that will be affected, for instance:

Traffic: Drivers use both North and South Leaside residential streets to bypass Eglinton Avenue For a number of years the community has been advocating for a Leaside-wide traffic plan to mitigate increased traffic and safety issues which has been in the works for years. Separating Leaside into two parts will make this extremely difficult, and certainly more time-consuming.

Transit: The TTC has not yet decided how many buses should run on Eglinton Avenue through Leaside once the LRT is in service.

• At one point the head of told me at a public event that TTC was considering running no bus service at all on Eglinton Avenue in Leaside. The Leaside LRT stations are one kilometre apart. This continuing issue would require involving two city councillors, each possibly on different community councils, complicating the process much like the traffic issue mentioned above.

Small Business in Leaside: One of several examples: One storeowner on Laird Drive is Andy Elder of GrillTime at 62 Laird Drive. He lives in South Leaside near Bayview Avenue and his store is on the west side of Laird Drive, located in your proposed St. Clair – Mount Pleasant riding. However, the business district he belongs to supports financially and in kind, which advocates for him, called the Leaside Business Park Association, remains in Don Valley West. This is a recipe for jurisdictional confusion.

Personal Experience of 'random' electoral boundaries:

From the late 1960s until the 1990s , the yellow line on Southvale Drive served as the northern federal boundary of Rosedale riding, with other ridings at different times north of that line. Rosedale, as I remember, extended all the way to Toronto waterfront. I remember sitting on the front porch of my parent's house watching Don Valley West candidate and later MP John Bosley vigorously campaigning on the north side of Southvale Drive.

• In many federal elections before 1994 elections no campaigners from Rosedale campaigns visited this small Leaside section of Rosedale riding, except when, in the last few days of one campaign, a Rosedale riding worker came and admitted they hadn't realized that we were Rosedale constituents until that day.
• When Rolph Road Elementary School invited candidates to talk about civic democracy, there was no discussion, let alone representation, of Rosedale campaigns even though the boundary was half a block to the south of the school.
• My first federal vote was cast in a neighbour's house because there was no facility available on election day to act as a polling station.

Confusion and frustration will be created within Leaside by the proposed St. Clair – Mount Pleasant / Don Valley West division, on the issues listed above and more, I can also see constituents south of St. Clair finding a deaf ear from the rest of University – Rosedale on issues important to them by larger and complete neighbourhood organizations with their own community interests.

Dividing traditional communities creates confusion. It is also counterproductive to good government and civic participation, as Professor Courtney advised us.

Solutions

I remember when my Commission was working on boundaries that our computer software was one dimensional, with little indication of topography. I would hope the software has been

upgraded, but if it has not, I would recommend that you access topographical maps as well. This part of the city naturally divides itself on north / south axes and topography, not east-west or by socio-economic similarities. Geography matters here.

I understand that the Commission has population goals to attain, but given the size of the City of Toronto those numbers could be made up elsewhere, especially as you have decided not to follow the former municipal boundaries. In the interest of community interests districts could also have slightly different variances.

Keeping neighbourhoods united is easily achievable by focussing on northern axes, and by natural boundaries such as the ravine system, the Canadian Pacific Railway tracks, on the west side of Yonge by St. Michaels Cemetery and Mount Hope Cemetery south of Blythwood Ave, while tightening the districts' east/west alignment to ensure each district has communities with common interests.

Leaside is a community, with lengthy and historical shared roots. It is about to celebrate its 110^th anniversary in 2023. I urge the Commission to maintain and protect this active and noteworthy community, by recognizing its natural geographic, historic, and present-day patterns.

With great respect and thanks to everyone involved with the Ontario Commission for undertaking this important process and I hope that the Commission will reconsider its proposed division of Leaside into two electoral districts.

With best regards,

Will Fripp
Former Commission Secretary,
Federal Electoral Boundaries Commission for Ontario, Representation 2004
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Sent by email to paula.puddy@redecoupage-federal-redistribution.ca