‘A Place To Grow’ will be Ontario’s new licence plate slogan

Thestar.com
April 10, 2019
Robert Benzie

“A Place To Grow.”

That’s the new licence plate slogan that will replace “Yours to Discover” on passenger vehicles, sources told the Star.

It is a line from “A Place to Stand, a Place to Grow (Ontari-ari-ari-o!),” the province’s jingle from Expo 67 in Montreal.

The 52-year-old song lyric -- penned by Dolores Claman, who also composed the original CBC “Hockey Night In Canada” theme -- will appear on white and blue passenger vehicle licence plates after the Progressive Conservative government tables its first budget Thursday.

As disclosed by the Star almost two weeks ago, “Open For Business” will be the slogan on the white and black plates issued for commercial vehicles.

Asked Tuesday about the new plate motto, Consumer Services Minister Bill Walker was coy.

“Stay tuned till Thursday. You will see a new slogan on Thursday,” said Walker.

While “Yours to Discover” has appeared on passenger and commercial plates since 1982, the new Tory administration, which toppled the Liberals last June after almost 15 years in opposition, wanted to signal there’s new management at Queen’s Park.

Premier Doug Ford confirmed last week that “we are going to make some changes” to the plate motto.

“People across this province want change. They voted for change and they’re getting change,” Ford told the legislature on April 2.

About 1.8 million new licence plates are issued by the province each year and there are 12.9 million active registered plates.

The Tories are also scrapping the “three men in a hot tub” Ontario trillium logo that the government has used since 2006.

A new trillium logo, designed at a cost of $89,000, will be unveiled in Thursday’s budget as part of an overall rebranding exercise.

Ford’s government will not be reviving the classic, T-shaped trillium symbol that was controversially replaced by then-premier Dalton McGuinty’s Liberals in 2006 after being used since 1964.

“A Place To Grow,” that’s the new licence plate slogan that will replace “Yours to Discover” on passenger vehicles, sources told the Star.
The province is also looking at following the lead of Quebec and many American states by getting rid of front licence plates.

Sources told the Star that change, which is opposed by many police forces, could save $2.5 million, although Walker declined to confirm that Tuesday.

NDP MPP Taras Natyshak has blasted the slogan changes, charging that the “taxpayers of Ontario will be paying for their mandatory PC party vanity plates.”

“The premier clearly spends a lot of time thinking about cars and vans,” said Natyshak (Essex) last week.

That was a shot at Ford’s abandoned pitch for an OPP van equipped with $50,000 in custom upgrades, including a 32-inch TV, a Blu-ray DVD player, and a mini-fridge.

Natyshak also wondered “what research the government has proving that the main barrier to attracting business in Ontario is a lack of appropriate messaging on licence plates?”

Last fall, the Tories spent $106,000 replacing “Yours to Discover” with “Open For Business” on 25 border-crossing signs.

Former premier Bob Rae, whose NDP government retained the “Yours to Discover” slogan created under Bill Davis’s Tories, recently derided Ford’s plan.

“I’ve knocked on thousands of doors over four decades in public life,” Rae wrote on Twitter. “No one has ever, ever, ever demanded a change in the licence plate, and in particular no one has ever, ever, ever suggested we change it to an empty hot air political slogan.”