Toronto city council votes to change the name of Dundas Street
Dundas Street #DundasStreet
Toronto city council has voted in favour of renaming Dundas Street in a bid to promote inclusion of marginalized communities.
After a lengthy debate on Wednesday, council voted 17 to seven in favour of a motion put forward by Mayor John Tory and city staff to change the name of the street, a major artery running east to west through the city.
The move follows a 2020 petition to scrap the name due to Henry Dundas’s association with the trans-Atlantic slave trade. It cropped up amid global discussions and protests against racial injustice, inequality and anti-Black racism.
Coun. Michael Thompson, the only Black person on council, said before the vote that renaming the street is the right thing to do.
“History will remember not so much what it cost us to change the name — it will remember whether or not we actually take the right action. Our reputation is on the line,” he said.
The city manager is expected to report back with recommendations for new names in the spring of 2022.
Dundas, an influential Scottish politician, was opposed to ending the British Empire’s participation in the transatlantic slave trade when the proposal was brought forth near the end of the 18th century.
His opposition served to stall the abolition of the practice, which kept hundreds of thousands of people, many of them Black, in bondage and allowed many more people to be enslaved.