Dundas name removal from four locations in Toronto sparks outrage

Toronto City Council has voted to remove the name Dundas from Yonge-Dundas Square, two subway stops and a library branch. It is a move that has drawn sharp criticism from a descendant of Henry Dundas, the 18th century Scottish politician for whom the sites were named. Dundas become a figure of controversy more than 200 years after his death, in the immediate aftermath of the George Floyd murder, when a wave of attacks were made on historical figures alleged to have committed racist acts. In the case of Dundas, who was a lifelong opponent of the slave trade, he was nonetheless accused of prolonging the slave trade by decades for inserting the word “gradual” into a proposed law outlawing the trade immediately—a law that had no hope of passage in its original wording.

The city of Edinburgh had a plaque erected at the foot of a statue of Dundas, repeating the allegations which were bolstered by an academic paper that was later trashed by academic peers. Soon a petition was circulated in Toronto calling for the renaming of Dundas Street, and Toronto council took up the cause and turned the matter over to staff to make recommendations on a possible name change. The staffer heading the project, was in frequent contact with the discredited Scottish academic, and instituted a process that Jennifer Dundas, a former CBC reporter and Alberta Crown Attorney maintains was deeply flawed and prejudicial. In the end staff recommended the street name change but that process is on hold for the moment while a re-evaluation of the evidence against Dundas is undertaken.

In a letter, City Manager Paul Johnson, writes “City staff continue to receive and review new scholarship related to the life and legacy of Henry Dundas and will reference scholarship in future reports to council.” However, such review will now only pertain the Dundas Street renaming, and to what effect is unclear, as it appears council has already made up its mind.