Support for Councillors’ Request to Rename the SJAM Parkway

Champlain Park neighbours are encouraged to review the following information and consider writing individual letters in support of the initiative to rename the Sir John A. Macdonald Parkway.

Coucillor’s Jeff Leiper, Catherine McKenney and Theresa Kavanagh have asked the Federal Government to facilitate an Indigenous-led consultation process to rename the Sir John A. Macdonald Parkway. The letter is posted on Jeff’s web site at: https://kitchissippiward.ca/content/name-reconciliation-re-name-sjam

For those with an interest in history, a precipitous name change in 2012 turned the Ottawa River Parkway into the Sir John A. Macdonald Parkway. There is no historical link between the Parkway and Sir John A. Macdonald, who died in 1891. The Parkway, first proposed in the 1940s as part of the Greber Plans for Ottawa, was built on former rail lands and the sites of waterfront houses.

An excellent synopsis is contained in Kelly Egan’s article in the Citizen, published on June 3: https://o.canada.com/news/local-news/egan-sir-john-a-wrong-name-for-parkway-in-2012-even-more-wrong-today.

Wikipedia has a brief section on the history of the Parkway: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_John_A._Macdonald_Parkway.