Comment 9 – comments and feedback

Caleb Samuels

As you exercise your responsibilities in deciding the redistribution of districts, I hope you will consider the common uses of the district names, which are used on a daily basis by many people. These names will be used across a variety of places from the floor of the House of Commons, to social media hashtags, and to pamphlets that are distributed during an election campaign.

My concern therefore is that the names of many of the ridings in your proposal are far too long to be practical on a day–to–day basis. Most of the district names that the commission has proposed are at least a dozen characters long. In a few cases, they are over thirty characters long.

These long names can be hard to speak, too long to write or type on documents, and difficult to memorize. In some cases, therefore people might not even bother learning a long name of an electoral district, avoiding its use wherever possible. Anecdotally, constituents in the community become less likely to associate and participate in the democratic process if they can't even remember the name of their own district. It is imperative therefore that district names are short, distinct, and memorable.

It is important, of course, that names are inclusive and meaningful to the local communities. And I acknowledge that the commission has made great strides in this regard. But when it comes to district names, inclusion of more community names should not be made at the expense of brevity.

In the case of the districts of Mississauga, the inclusion of the word "Mississauga" in the names of the ridings is redundant. (Except in the cases of Mississauga–Lakeshore and Mississauga–Centre where the name "Mississauga" distinguishes them from similarly–named districts in other cities.) As far as I know, there is only one community known as "Meadowvale" in Canada, and likewise for "Erin–Mills" and "Malton". So the inclusion of "Mississauga–" unnecessarily adds twelve characters to the names of those districts.

I hope the commission will, where possible, consider shortening and maintaining simplicity in the electoral district names.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Yours truly,

Caleb Samuels