September 20th update

As announced last Friday, the report titled “Street Name Change – Wellington Street
(reference: ACS2010-CCS-PEC-0026 (PEC 06-10), which was initially scheduled for September 13th and postponed for the 27th, has now been delayed indefinitely.

It has now been more than 18 months ago since this ill-considered idea of renaming Ottawa’s oldest and most prestigious street has been proposed. The instigator and sole supporter of the “pro renaming” side, Mr. Bob Plamondon has failed to demonstrate that there was a need for the renaming, failed to explain why he used political connections to bypass the regular process and show complete disregard for the City of Ottawa’s by-laws (see note 1 at end), and failed to garner any support at all from the community and local population.

In the meantime, those against the renaming have been very vocal. They include the editorial boards of the National Post, Globe and Mail, and Montreal Gazette, along with dozen of eminent Canadians from civil society and academia, local politicians, heritage and history organizations.

The “Save Wellington Street” campaign was launched by the Société Macdonald-Cartier Society on June 22nd 2010 in anticipation of the July 5, 2010 meeting of the then-PEC (Planning and Environment Committee – now Planning Committee). At that meeting, the committee had approved “public consultations”. In the nearly 15 months since, there have been no such consultations with the public.

With the support of the Mayor of City of Ottawa, his Worship Jim Watson, we certainly hope that the Planning Committee will withdraw the need for a report. The community is against the renaming and the waste of over a million dollars it would entail to reprint the business cards and other office supplies for the thousands of government workers and staff that use Wellington Street as their business location.

In the early days of the “Save Wellington Street” campaign, SMCS took two initiatives to firstly safeguard the historic and unique character of Wellington Street, and secondly offer a common-sense alternative. We have opened a file to designate Wellington Street as National Historic District, and the file remains opened until the renaming issue gets settled at city hall. There are dozen buildings that are individually registered as National Historic Sites but the heritage status of the street that connects the district known as “Parliament Hill” or “Parliamentary Precinct” is not recognized.

We have also offered a common-sense alternative to renaming Wellington Street. Considering that Ottawa’s airport is named Macdonald-Cartier International Airport and considering that the only road that leads from the airport to downtown is Airport Parkway and that the name is administrative bland, we have suggested to rename the road to Macdonald-Cartier (Airport) Parkway. This would be a low-cost (very few street signs, no houses or businesses affected) and common-sense solution to naming an important road after the two prominent figures of Confederation, Sir John A. Macdonald and Sir George-Étienne Cartier. Proceeding in this matter would also achieve the same goals Mr. Plamondon has claimed as his motivation, while preserving intact the name of the two oldest streets of Bytown/Ottawa : Wellington Street and Rideau Street (one continuous street divided by the Rideau Canal).

In closing, we wish to highlight once again the 185th anniversary of the founding of Bytown on September 26, 2011 and would of wished the City had done something to recognize this important event.

Note 1 : According to the Commemorative Naming Policy, an individual cannot be commemorated more than once. Since there already exists a MacDonald Street (misspelled) commemorating Sir John A. Macdonald, another street would violate the policy. Furthermore, Wellington Street does not qualify as a “Boulevard”. Notwithstanding these technical aspects, SMCS is not opposed to more commemorations of Sir John A., but opposed to the renaming of Ottawa’s oldest street.