BarrieToday welcomes letters to the editor at [email protected] or via the website. Please include your full name, daytime phone number and address (for verification of authorship, not publication).
Since the May 1 death of the famous Ontario singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot, the author and co-proposers of this project have been seeking an appropriate highway renaming in his honour, to permit Canadians to remember what he aptly contributed in defining and characterizing Ontario and the people and country of Canada that he much loved and portrayed so profoundly through a number of his creations.
Following his note of May 3, 2023 to an Ottawa cousin expressing the idea of naming a major highway (400 or part of 401) in honour of recently deceased Gordon Lightfoot, Arthur Plumpton, resident of Île d'Orléans, Que., a one-time resident and often seasonal resident of Ontario, wrote to Premier Doug Ford to request that dedication of Highway 400.
The Premier's Office replied on May 8, acknowledging the original request and suggesting that the further step should be to contact the Ministry of Transportation highway naming committee.
This was done on May 13 with 28 fellow co-sponsors and updated to include a part of Highway 11 as an additional and equal alternative to Highway 400.
Following several attempts since May 8 to contact the Ministry of Transportation, a letter from the Senior Issues Advisor, Regional Services and Relationships Office, Central Operations, Operations Division of the Ministry of Transportation Ontario was received on June 23 with the information that demanders are required to seek support from several bodies situated along the proposed routes and also to absorb the eventual costs of producing and maintaining in future such signs.
Following discussions with the same Senior Issues Advisor, I was not convinced that this rather stringent requirement was common to all past highway naming in Ontario.
Among the examples that mentioned in contacting the Ministry on June 30 were the "Terry Fox Courage Highway" that is part of Highway 11 near Thunder Bay, and a portion of Highway 401 (officially known overall as, the MacDonald-Cartier Freeway) from Trenton to Toronto that was subsequently renamed or co-named the "Hero's Highway" in honour of deceased military persons.
I acknowledged to the Senior Issues Advisor that the naming of the new bridge (2027) between Windsor and Detroit as the Gordie Howe International Bridge, which we had previously cited, is a matter of federal and not provincial responsibility.
In the neighbouring province of Quebec, the costs related to highway name designations are wholly supported by its government and taxpayers, including that for singer-songwriter Félix Leclerc (325 km of autoroute 40) and hockey player Guy Lafleur (autoroute 50 from Gatineau towards Montreal).
As for Gordon Lightfoot, both of these former Quebec citizens had excelled in their respective professional lives and were much loved by their fellow citizens. Notwithstanding their professional achievements, it is in large part their considerable dedication to their homeland, to its culture and its values, for which they are honoured, and by the manner which those values have inspired others and continue to do so when driving on the highways dedicated to them.
Will Ontario accept this opportunity to inspire its citizens by the naming of a highway or a part thereof for the thoughts of a remarkable Ontario artist for his country, its character and its values that he so often expressed in his music.
We believe that a dedication for the late Gordon Lightfoot should be actively supported and facilitated by the Government of Ontario and the citizens and would enhance the perception of the province as a desired place to live.
Why recognize Gordon Lightfoot in this way, as someone who has already received numerous professional and national honours for his music?
Following our original request in this sense to the Premier of Ontario, some 40 former fellow Orillia school alumni of Lightfoot and friends have accepted my original suggestion of highway naming and have sought to specifically recognize Lightfoot's immense talents as a singer and composer, including his output of more than 425 original songs.
Our request of early May to the Premier is also founded on Lightfoot's remarkable musical career, but it is principally intended to recognize his prototypical contributions in defining and demonstrating what he believed to be Canada, physically and philosophically, and inciting Canadians to reflect on the nature, values, character and identity of the country he much loved and from which he could not separate himself.
Lightfoot’s gift for capturing the essence of Canada’s landscapes, people, and history through his lyrics is what has led to his greatest contribution to Canadian music and Canadian identity. He expertly reflected the Canadian experience with songs like "Shadows" and “Canary Yellow Canoe” from his canoe trips, that describe the beauty of Northern Canada, or the tragedy of a real-life maritime disaster on Lake Superior, in “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald", following which he maintained personal contact with the families of those who perished.
Canadian Railroad Trilogy, written for Canada's centennial year, is an ode to the development of the Canadian Pacific trans-Canada railway in the 1880s. One of Lightfoot’s many prototypical songs, the resplendent epic provides a vivid portrayal of the adventure, resilience in the face of hardship, and triumph of constructing a nation.
Who else wrote so poetically about the "navvies," the railroad manual workers of Canadian and Chinese birth, who crafted a challenging route that the surveyors proposed and which finally convinced British Columbia to become part of Canada?
Among his other compositions that reflect a love of Canada are Steel Rail Blues, Ribbon of Darkness, Ten Degrees and Getting Colder, Christian Island, Seven Island Suite, and Alberta Bound.
When notified on May 2, 2023 of his passing, his friend Bob Dylan said that Gordon died “without ever having made a bad song,” and every time that he listened to one of them, he “wished it would last forever.”
We sincerely believe that not only is Gordon Lightfoot's contribution to Canadian music impressive, but his championship of Canadian values and his depiction of the physical and philosophical character and identity of Ontario and Canada merits the renaming of one of the two major highways that intersect or are close to his hometown of Orillia.
His well-known humility would suggest naming parts of Highway 11 or Highway 400 as the "Gordon Lightfoot Highway," perhaps even more simply, "The Lightfoot Way" in recognition of this brilliant and dedicated Canadian who has had a significant impact on our lives and well-being and was very humble in his activity.
In future, those travelling either of these proposed routes north of the GTR, or north of Barrie, will be incited to think not only of the person, but of the land, the values and the people to which he was so attached and depicted so well.
On behalf of the 28 other current co-proposers of this honour, I wish that all who support this request of the Ontario government take a few minutes to contact your local municipal or your provincial parliament representatives to express your agreement.
Arthur James Plumpton
(on behalf of the 29 current proposers)
Île d'Orléans, Que.
