HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO THE THREE CHARLOTTETOWNS

Amid the isolation that has become our daily reality it would be easy to forget one event that ended municipal isolation 25 years ago this month when on April 1, 1995, the greater Charlottetown area saw the largest set of amalgamations it has ever known.

Following years of consultation and a review by former longserving deputy minister, Lorne Moase, the challenge of a multitude of competing municipalities in the capital region was resolved with the creation of three new communities from 16 or more dissolved municipal structures. Rather than a single mega city like Halifax which brought the entire Halifax County and all municipalities within it into the Regional Halifax Municipality one year to the day later, Moase wisely advised that the new amalgamation would be broken into three separate units defined by the rivers that divide Charlottetown Harbour into three major landmasses. Thus was born Charlottetown South, Charlottetown West, and the City of Charlottetown on that spring day a quarter century ago. Local sensibilities south and west suggested that unique names chosen locally rather than ones stated in legislation would be best thus the new councils undertook as their first task to find names their electorate felt comfortable with and thus was reborn the name Stratford which was a very old name in that area. Cornwall also opted to rename their community with a familiar name from the area at the heart of the new community.

Neighbourhood names continue to live on and provide an important link to all the communities of the past as we acknowledge the 300th anniversary of European settlement around Charlottetown Harbour this year. Three cheers for the three capital area communities reborn 25 years ago and best wishes for the years ahead as they continue to show themselves to be strong municipalities that can work together for the common good. Ian Scott, Charlottetown