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According to a survey conducted by the Coalition to Preserve Community Identity in HRM, 65 percent of respondents feel that HRM’s 2014 rebranding was, and is, too expensive. Another 23 percent said they didn’t know enough about the costs to answer.
The online survey was conducted over two months last fall by the Coalition—a group that’s composed of administrators from six different Facebook groups opposed to the municipality’s bold new branding. They say they have a combined membership of about 5,000 people.
Fewer than that participated in the group’s survey, which collected only 457 responses from people in Dartmouth, Cole Harbour, Eastern Passage and Eastern Shore communities.
That may not seem like a large amount, but spokesperson Warren Wesson says the goal was only to get more participants than the survey conducted by Revolve back in the winter of 2014, before this whole mess started.
The Define Halifax Region online survey only resulted in 426 responses. So, technically, in terms of online survey responses, the Coalition does kind of win. But that’s if you don’t count the two telephone surveys conducted by CRA which had 711 respondents, or the 2,400 people who showed up at the public engagement sessions.
All told, roughly 4,600 participants gave feedback to Revolve and HRM through surveys and engagement sessions two years ago. Another 16,000 individuals viewed materials and information related to the project on the web and social media.
But Wesson believes Dartmouth didn’t get a fair shake in that consultation, and he isn’t impressed with its results.
“I’m not really convinced that Revolve study is on the up-and-up,” he says. “And I’m not actually sure the citizens are being told straight up what the true purpose of the branding was.”
The initial rebranding effort two years ago cost the HRM roughly $300,000. Only a small amount of that money went into creating the new logo, with the rest being spent on background research and public consultation.
Last summer, rallying cries against the changes began to increase with the removal of Dartmouth flags and the appearance of “Halifax” on Dartmouth signs.
Councillor Gloria McCluskey presented a petition from those concerned about the name changes. Councillor Waye Mason wrote a lengthy blog post trying to address some of those concerns. They had it out on the radio. Time moved on.
Numbers aside, the location of respondents in the Coalition’s survey may also be biasing results. Wesson says his group had hoped to “bust out” of the eastern communities who’ve been more outspoken against the rebranding and get a more accurate, municipality-wide sample. Should that happen in the future, he’s not afraid of the results.
“If more people want this than don’t on an HRM level, then so be it. Let the cards fall where they may. But I’m not convinced that’s the way it is.”
Wesson says he “enjoys” Halifax and isn’t looking to provoke any animosity. He just wants to ensure the name “Dartmouth” doesn’t disappear for his grandchildren.
“I want them to know they grew up in Dartmouth,” he says. “Halifax is a great place, but I think Dartmouth is a great place too.”
The Coalition to Preserve Community Identity in HRM says it will release other information gleaned from its survey later this week.
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This Halifax/Dartmouth branding war will destroy us all
This article appears in Dec 24, 2015 – Jan 6, 2016.
Thanks for bringing some attention to this Jacob.
Appreciate it very much. There were and still are cheaper alternatives to certain situations yet we fumble down this road spending money we don’t have.
We have a perfectly good Coat of Arms representative of the HRM.
Was the real reason for the branding to abed changing the name of the city by covering the prohibitive costs that vetoed it twice before in the past?
Covering those real costs no one knows masquerading as tourist attraction and business investment? Why are we now budgeting to “Live the brand”? What does that even mean?
Thanks for hearing us.
The greater issue is not the cost of the branding, but the level of quality of the branding for the money spent. It is clear it was not worth the cost.
Resolve’s counts of persons involved in their study are, if not red-herrings, at least irrelevant to the re-branding or renaming question. Only a few were questioned on the re-branding idea.
Resolve claims that “at least six in ten agree that the name “Halifax” is a better name than “Halifax Regional Municipality.” Their own figures do not support that claim. Here are some facts:
In their report; Appendix F, Table 4 clearly shows that 52% of respondents preferred to keep the Halifax Regional Municipality name. Only 42% preferred any other name.
Page 47 shows that, of the 42% who preferred some other name, only about 60% chose Halifax. Calculating the precise percentage is complicated by the way Resolve appears to give equal weighting to the 59 “Stakeholders” and the other categories which number over 400 each.
60% of 42% equals about 25% in favour of the name “Halifax”. That’s less than half of the number who preferred to keep the “Halifax Regional Municipality” name.
So, if we ignore the political spin and misdirection, both surveys agree that the re-branding is a terrible idea. Enough said.
It is my opinion that though the gross amount of HRM tax money wasted is an important issue, the bigger issue is one of community identity. This re-branding exercise is, again in my opinion, deceptive and its true objective is to ease the transition of our legal name, Halifax Regional Municipality, to simply that of Halifax. It is my understanding that at the time amalgamation was forced on us, communities really didn’t have the option to say no, but it was agreed that HRM would not ever become just ‘Halifax’.
Rebranding does not put Halifax in a better light globally, it confuses people especially tourists. We should be celebrating the differences of our regional communities and NOT assimilating them. In a world that over uses acronyms, it surprizes me that our municipal leaders have a problem saying HRM. The word regional has only 3 small syllables; how difficult is that to say… really?
‘Live the Brand’ is an expensive strategy to, in my opinion from what I have read on the “Halifax” budget/strategies website, shove the ‘Halifax’ brand down our throats so it wipes out the names of the other regional communities, to brainwash us to believe we are all one happy “Halifax” family. All municipal staff will be undergoing special “Live the Brand” training, (… so they are better able to deal with dissenters, such as myself?).
It irks me to no end to see the various forms of media refer to our region as just “Halifax”. The communities they serve do not identify as being from Halifax. Many people complain about the rebranding but are unwilling to speak up; which is serves the powers that be well. Some city staffers feel they are being ‘muzzled’ and fear they will lose their jobs if they speak out against the Halifax brand (well at least 3 staff members I talked to about it). Is it so difficult for media to refer to our Municipality as HRM, or say the Region, anything but just Halifax. Of course, if referring to an area within the community of Halifax say Halifax … but PLEASE DO NOT refer to communities from Dartmouth, Cole Harbour, Bedford, Sackville, Ecum Secum, etc as Halifax. Instead of unifying our communities, it is creating a great divide!
I love the City of Halifax; I lived there during my young adult life. However, I was born and raised in Dartmouth and it is my community. I identify as being from Dartmouth and do not consider being forced to identify as from Halifax as an option for me. It’s just wrong on so many levels.
I moved here 6 years ago, and it immediately struck me how incredibly serious people take themselves here.
We are in an outpost 15 hours away from the nearest city, and somehow it matters that I live in colby village. I guess it’s not dartmouth, and I guess it’s not Halifax. You know what? I’m going to say Halifax, just like I said Toronto when living in Markham.
Getting bent out of shape about this is petty and weird. Grow up!
When traveling and you tell someone you’re from Dartmouth and they wrinkle an eyebrow. To clarify you say Halifax; immediate understanding.
End of argument.
Yes, the same team. Each team member usually has his name prominently displayed on his jersey.
D ^ R T M O U T H – there, how hard was that ? Fucking crybabies.
Who will be the crybabies when the peninsula is renamed “Harbour West” because the “Halifax” name has been given to the Municipality? Already the “Harbour East” name is cropping up on the Dartmouth side.
I don’t give a fuck one way or the other, but the other day I read a Canadian Geographic article by Silver Donald Cameron (Dec 2015) where he refers to Colby Village as a suburb of Halifax. Thought of you guys.
In Brooklyn (or Queens, Bronx, etc) the signs say “City of New York”. In Etobicoke they say “Toronto.” Hell, in old St. Boniface, they say “Winnipeg.” Brooklyn and Etobicoke and St. Boniface are all former cities that have managed to maintain their own identity (though Etobicoke is pretty much just bland suburbia) despite being legally amalgamated into larger cities. Dartmouth can be the same.
But first, Dartmouthians needs to stop pretending Dartmouth exists any longer as a civic entity. It doesn’t. It’s a collection of neighbourhoods in Halifax. That’s what it is. It can still have a Darmouth-ish identity, but it’s not an independent city anymore, and there’s no reason to erect signs and flags that pretend otherwise. Get the eff over it.
Getting a little ahead of yourself, JereBat?
Neither Dartmouth nor Halifax is a City. Halifax is, by your definition, equally “a collection of neighbourhoods”. Both lost their charters as Cities 20 years ago. Both are “Place Names” in HRM. Equal status. Not civic entities. Equally valued by their residents.
Haligonians need to stop pretending that Halifax exists any longer as a civic entity. There’s no reason to erect signs and flags that pretend otherwise. Get the eff over it.
@Scott Benjamin
Nah, it’s Halifax. I mean, I know it’s technically HRM, but as far as the wider world is concerned, it’s Halifax. (Heck, to most non-Nova Scotians, Dartmouth is a college in New Hampshire. Nobody but us cares about this petty squabble, and I think a lot of us don’t really care either.)
“Let others’ ignorance be your guide”, eh?
Hmmm…
Let’s let the readers decide for themselves which is the more cogent argument here.
Again for all these people whining about the citizens of DARTMOUTH being upset with the theft of their identity let’s take it from this perspective. HALIFAX ceased to exist thw same day Dartmouth did. No singular community name can legally be used to represent all the communities which make up the HRM. So let’s make it real. HALIFAX singular needs to be removed from all the rebranding and replaced with Halifax Regional Municipality. Then let’s see all the whiners from Halifax start posting their comments about the loss of the city of Halifax!!