Comment 83 – comments and feedback
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Debbie MacQuarrie
When I was in my early teens my family became one of the first residents of Blackburn Hamlet and my sister and I both continue to be residents here. Other members of our family live nearby in Orleans. At the present time we are part of the Federal riding of Orleans.
I am extremely concerned with the proposed new Ottawa-Vanier Electoral Boundaries which seems to have hacked off & swallowed up the community of Blackburn Hamlet from Orleans and lumped it in with a more urban-like grab bag of communities seeming to have very little in common with ours… and vice versa —- We have little, if any shared concerns of theirs.
I have been in touch with my Ottawa City Councillor, Laura Dudas, to express my concerns about the new proposed electoral boundary for Ottawa-Vanier. Laura Dudas represents Innes Ward in Ottawa (Blackburn Hamlet, the Village of Orleans, Chapel Hill…).
Her letter (August 23) to our Member of Parliament, Marie-France Lalonde, outlined many of our shared concerns. She posted the letter publicly on her website and included a link to it here: https://lauradudas.ca/letter-to-mp-federal-electoral-district-changes/.
The following is part of Councillor Dudas' Letter …
"It is in that vein that I ask you, as our Member of Parliament, to raise this concern and ensure that Blackburn Hamlet remains with the rest of Orléans. As you yourself know, the interests and needs of Blackburn Hamlet are entirely the same as those suburban communities in the rest of your riding. Yet, the needs of the Blackburn Hamlet community, are wildly different from those of the Ottawa-Vanier communities of Lowertown, the By Ward Market, or even those higher density, easterly neighbourhoods along Montreal Road."
Please — reconsider — take a closer look at our proximity and close-knit communities of Blackburn Hamlet and Orleans — and tkeep us working together. Don't divide us.
Please, Keep Blackburn Hamlet with Orleans.
Thanking you for your consideration of this concern,
Debbie MacQuarrie
Blackburn Hamlet Resident
P.S. ~
The new proposed Ottawa-Vanier boundary has an estimated population of 127,532 and Ottawa Centre has only a population of 118,950. Why?
Why couldn't everything west of the Rideau River (Sandy Hill, Ottawa University, Etc. be moved into Ottawa Centre to make the populations more equal?