Meilleur undeserving of street name honour
Posted Nov 20, 2009 By Sandra Carleton
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(Re: "Street name honours MPP Meilleur" by Jessica Hinds, Ottawa East EMC, page four, Friday, October 23.)
I must challenge small liberal municipal Councillor Georges Bédard - who nominated his Liberal MPP for a street named after her called Madeleine Meilleur Private - and suggested that Ms. Meilleur is deserving of having a street named after her because, as a woman and a Francophone in the French bastion of Vanier, she is a minority on both counts.
Women represent at least 50 per cent of the population in Canada and Francophones are hardly a minority in Vanier. Ms. Meilleur was not even born or raised in Vanier, Ontario. She is a Quebecer who moved to Ontario in the latter years of her life. Coun. Bédard, who is supposed to deal with municipal issues, should refrain from trying to equate his decisions with some sort of national philanthropic endeavour for the betterment of humans.
Coun. Bédard's arguments regarding this matter are a disservice to some of the real minorities in his ward and this province, not to mention other "non-minorities" who have devoted a larger part of their lives to improving the lives of those in Vanier than Ms. Meilleur.
Sandra Carleton
Vanier
(Editor's Note: The author of the above letter is the membership secretary for the Ottawa-Vanier Progressive Conservative riding association.)
