Yesterday I wanted to find my MP to write to him/her about the conservative’s planed changes to copyright legislation. All I know about politics where I live is that my former MPP was an italian liberal and the current MPP is a conservative jew. Not much to go on, but at least I have an address, so how hard could it be to find out? Real hard. Let me tell you about the beginning of that journey.
I live on a very peculiar street corner – Dufferin and Rutherford. It’s peculiar because it’s not at all clear what city it’s in. It is right in between 3, or 4, or 5 cities, or towns, or municipalities, or regions whatever you call them.. Yes I’m actually not sure where I live. And the fact that I don’t know what a riding is, and how it’s mapped to the something that I live in makes things worse. Then what makes things even worse is that I’m not sure MPs and MPPs share the exact same regions or not.
Here’s what I thought I knew about this intersection (all roughly, with the Dufferin/Rutherford corner reference):
- NNE – Richmond Hill
- NW – Vaughan
- N/S – Concord
- NWW – Maple
To my annoyance the MPs and MPPs for Vaughan and Richmond Hill are liberals. Mind, I actually like that – but I know that my MPP is a conservative so I must be looking in the wrong place. Concord and Maple weren’t even in any of the tables I looked at.
Completely by mistake and almost out of desperation I looked at Thornhill. MP – liberal Susan Kadis, and she has a map of her riding on her website! What do you know, my corner of the intersection is in Thornhill. I had no idea, I thought Thornhill was way down on Steeles and east of Youge. Well I was half right – half of it is.
After that it was easy. I quickly found about my former, well liked and very experienced liberal MPP Maurizio Bevilacqua; and the current, new kid on the block conservative Peter Shurman. My search is over.
But honestly I still don’t know where I live. More than once I had my postal code resolve to Concord. I know that my garbage collection is managed by Vaughan, and I get the Vaughan local paper. Richmond Hill is so close I can’t honestly discount the possibility, and I often see Maple on maps when looking for where I live. Now Thornhill? If that’s where I lived for two years, how is it that I’ve never heard of or read about it? Lame.
I wish they’d just call the whole thing the Greater North York or something. That may sound vague but at least I’d know what it is.