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Proposed renaming of Dundas Street
- Thread starter BMO
- Start date
afransen
Senior Member
Perhaps in the interest of never having to rename anything ever again, we should institute a policy that things many only be named in the most banal, anodyne way. Rename Dundas to Maple Street. Nathan Phillips Square can become Municipal Rectangle. Nelson Mandela Park Public School can become Active Shuter Public School. We should definitely be renaming King and Queen Streets, as the Monarchy has a very problematic history. We should definitely make this the highest priority for the municipal government.
rbt
Senior Member
I have zero objections to transitioning to a numbered street system.
zang
Senior Member
How about we just don't offer up naming as a political backscratching/financial donation reward? Especially just because you're friends with someone in power (and never even visited the country, like Dundas)?
Dan416
Senior Member
Maybe Ford can use his provincial powers to stop the renaming of Dundas. It would certainly not be the most egregious thing he's done and I'd rather the name not change anyway. For a city that cries wolf about not having money for anything, it certainly finds ways to waste it.
toaster29
Active Member
I think we all agree that going forward we should never name things after people, but the go back and change a street name (not a statue, a name that doesn't need to refer to any particular person) is very expensive. Why waste tens of millions on this when there are so many urgent issues, people on streets, refugees, housing, etc. This idea that people are having a visceral reaction to the seeing the word Dundas (or hearing the phonetics of the word) and making some kind of implication that it is as harmful as hearing discriminatory slurs is insane. There are many people with the surname Dundas currently living in Toronto. The word itself will continue to exist, it's not like it will just disappear. I agree with not naming public entities after people anymore.
Another thing, it's intellectually naive to think at this point in time - now in 2023 - we have the answers and know what is right from wrong. Every single generation before us, they were wrong, but this point in time, now - we are the ones who are right, we've figured it out.
W. K. Lis
Superstar
zang
Senior Member
I hate this firefighting argument. It implies that we can only do one thing at once. We are capable of doing many, and the renaming of Dundas will spread across many annual budgets. It is a small drop in the bucket for the city’s coffers. At $8.6m over several years, it’s roughly ⅔ of what just the city clerk’s office takes in revenue per year.
We can (and should) do multiple things at once. Just because one group thinks it may be frivolous, doesn’t mean all will. That’s what happens when a government serves everyone.
People knew slavery was wrong back then. The majority of the public was in favour of ending it.
Unfortunately, pretty much the rich were the only ones allowed to vote or be in parliament, and they were the ones deciding whether it needed to still exist in law, and conveniently those heavily invested in owning, using, or the trade of slaves.
W. K. Lis
Superstar
We can start with "Dundas Street East", since it is a shorter street than "Dundas Street West". Maybe try an initial change with Yonge-Dundas Square, Dundas Station, and Dundas West Station.
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toaster29
Active Member
I mean, budgeting by definition is the act of setting priorities and allocating/providing funds to particular initiatives, purposes, projects, line items. It is totally accurate to make the argument that the 8.6 million (I've seen anywhere from 5-20) should be allocated to other things when we are facing a housing, homeless, and affordability crisis. It's a difficult task to go to other levels of government asking for funding when you are prioritizing using millions of dollars to rename a street - particularly when we are in a crisis.
zang
Senior Member
What you’re saying though is that money to pay for this would otherwise go to affordability, housing and homelessness, and not the gardiner, the police budget, etc.
Are we still naming old back lanes?
It’s not hard to go to upper governments because they are precisely the ones who’ve starved us of money for those programs for years, and denied us the means to increase that lost revenue. They once provided funding for things like housing, etc. Right now, we know we’re paying out of pocket for refugee housing, which is very clearly the jurisdiction of the feds.
Doing anything but seething against their cuts, is giving them full control over city politics and budget, which despite what Doug Ford may think, is not the role of the provincial government. Why even have municipal governments at all then?
Northern Light
Superstar
This is not just about Dundas, its about the precedent and the financial impact of re-evaluating everything else we've ever named.
The cost of which, including future naming, could easily exceed 100M.
Sure, but this is not one of those things we should be doing.
Right, and the proposal to abolish had been defeated in parliament fairly recently, prior to Dundas' legislation actually passing.
The willful misreading of history, making him out to be a villain where the historical record indicates no such thing, on the flimsiest of research is not reasonable.
T3G
Senior Member
It also sets a really bad precedent. If we rename one street based on a sketchy (if I wished to be generous) reading of history, it opens the door for every special interest group with a grievance, real or perceived, to demand that their street of choice be renamed, too, and for them to cry foul "how come those guys get their street renamed, and we don't?"
If some people with a petition want a street renamed, they should front the cost - in total - themselves. The costs to the city, to every resident and business along the street, to the TTC. They may not feel so enthusiastic about the idea if they were asked to put their money where their mouth is.
If some people with a petition want a street renamed, they should front the cost - in total - themselves. The costs to the city, to every resident and business along the street, to the TTC. They may not feel so enthusiastic about the idea if they were asked to put their money where their mouth is.
W. K. Lis
Superstar
A little like wanting the address number changed because of their superstition. The city should force the accepting of numbers like 4 or 13 or 666 for street addresses, floor numbers, and suite numbers. May end up with a lower price for a place if they end up with a superstitious number.
zang
Senior Member
Slippery slope - Wikipedia
Because you don’t like it?
14,000 people gave their signature to change it. Did 14,001 do so to keep it the same?
City council voted more than ⅔ in favour of renaming it, too.
But some opinion pieces in conservative papers think we shouldn’t, so I guess we shouldn’t.
“Slow transition” could be seen as slow walking, depending on where one sits.
The public was in favour of immediate abolition. He would certainly have had public support, and was perceived to hold more power over parliament than the King himself.
Let’s not forget it was he who added “gradual” to Wilberforce’s bill. Why does a man known for unequaled, strong handed political power need to broker a compromise? a compromise that conveniently benefited him as Secretary of War.
“the wilful misreading of history”?
The historical record for Dundas isn’t exactly lily-white. Aside from taking his wife’s birthright and family home, he was impeached for defrauding the government and was called “the great tyrant” all throughout his time in politics. One doesn’t get a name like that for no reason.
As Secretary of War, he also had a bunch of free Jamaican Maroons from Trelawney Town (including ancestors of my brother-in-law) forcibly deported to Nova Scotia. But hey, he was a nice guy.
Not every historian is in agreement that his legacy was positive. But the fact that he wasn’t well liked in his time, and did some otherwise crappy things, shows me he wasn’t all that great a human being. And despite being “the victor”, parliament was instilled a term for politicking still referred to as “Dundas Despotism”.
So is he really deserving of having his name on something for eternity? On a street in a country he never visited, only done so as a patronage for being best buds with Lord Simcoe?
But there’s a reason no-one’s calling for a renaming of everything named after Simcoe; because his history as a person and a politician are far more clear-cut. His “compromise” in abolishing slavery actually did stop new slaves in Upper Canada, an example set three years before 1796 when Dundas made a speech against abolition.
At best, Dundas was a pure game-playing politician and more likely an opportunist, who certainly wasn’t deserving of the kind of reverence some here demand we give the man.
And again, does so much stuff in our country need to be named after middling-to-terrible people out of patronage? Isn’t that a wrong to right on its own?
If it truly is about cost, why not do it now, rather than wait until years in the future when it’s more expensive?