For several years now, Ontario has been going through a cultural reckoning. The statue of Canada’s first prime minister, Sir John A. Macdonald, remains crated up in front of Queen’s Park. Queen’s University also took his name off its law school. Egerton Ryerson’s name disappeared from a university in the provincial capital. And the same city is considering whether to remove Henry Dundas’s name from one of its most significant streets.
This cultural reckoning has been urged on by many communities who, for too long, have been excluded from the “official” version of history. They understandably want a seat at the table as well. But some changes have critics concerned.
Former Ontario cabinet minister Gordon Walker has been watching all this with dismay. He says he understands that time marches on and that new groups may want new names on prominent buildings or institutions. And he has no quarrel with that. What he objects to is how it’s all happening.
“What’s bothering me is that the story isn’t being told properly,” says Walker, a London-area MPP in the 1970s and ’80s. “We’re seeing the decapitating of statues and the renaming of buildings. But people are trying to rewrite history with ‘alternative facts.’ And that’s disturbing.”
Walker’s anger has boiled over to the point that he’s part of a group that’s created a new, non-profit organization called the Canadian Institute for Historical Education. The group wants to promote academic research and contribute to “evidence-based analysis.” They had their first day-long symposium at the University of Toronto’s Massey College last weekend; it featured academics and researchers delivering presentations to an audience of academics, history buffs, interested citizens, and former politicians from all three major parties.
Patrice Dutil knows this issue well and, like Walker, is infuriated at the turn it’s taken. He teaches politics and public administration at the now renamed Toronto Metropolitan University and has been appalled by what he says is the shoddy use of history to remove Ryerson’s name from his workplace.
“Canadian history is under siege,” Dutil told the symposium last Saturday, noting high-school students need only one history credit to graduate nowadays, rather than the four of decades ago. Furthermore, he says, “history enrolment at universities is declining precipitously. The curriculum is in jeopardy. History is being written out of our culture. And politicians are buying into this. We’ve got to rebuild the market for history.”
Dutil worked himself up into quite a frenzy during his speech. “This cannot stand,” he said with emotion. “The time to prepare is now. Canadian history is a tree with many gnarled roots intertwined in the ground. You can’t saw off any roots. There’s room for them all.”
Much of the day’s presentations focused on Dundas, the most influential politician in Scotland in the late 18th century and an adviser to British prime minister William Pitt the Younger. Dundas’s role in history has come under increased scrutiny of late because of allegations that he was soft on abolishing slavery in the British House of Commons during debates more than 200 years ago.
Jennifer Dundas, a distant relative of Henry Dundas’s, a former Southam Fellow at Massey College, and chair of the Henry Dundas Committee of Ontario, took last weekend’s gathering through the chronology of how such a misinterpretation of Dundas’s political record could have happened.
Jennifer Dundas has no problem with the protesters who urged the city to rename Dundas Street, after George Floyd was murdered by police in Minnesota in 2020. “They’re activists,” she said. “That’s what they do.”
Rather, her disappointment focuses on the process used by the City of Toronto for considering the renaming of Dundas Street, a process that she calls unfair.
The case against Henry Dundas focuses on a resolution that came before the British Parliament. William Wilberforce, the MP who was the driving force behind the abolitionist side, had already lost two motions to end slavery, in 1791 and 1792. Dundas was an ally and wanted to abolish slavery, too. But when it became obvious that Wilberforce was going to lose a third vote, Dundas recommended adding the word “gradually” to the resolution. That compromise allowed other MPs to support the resolution, and it then passed. It was the single biggest anti-slavery victory to date.
“You have to understand the dynamics of the time,” Jennifer Dundas said.
But, for critics, it painted Dundas as insufficiently abolitionist, “And, once you’re tainted by colonialism, you’re done,” said Christopher Dummit, a history professor at Trent University who has also examined the historical record and made a presentation at last weekend’s symposium. “The critics partly tell the truth, but they eliminate the complexities and rely on a general ignorance of history.”
The renaming issue has also entered the current Toronto mayor’s race. Former city councillor Rob Davis often makes public appearances brandishing a “Dundas Street” sign as a prop to help him make the point that the city’s intent to rename that street (and 59 others) at a cost of $21 million is misguided.
Meanwhile, Walker sees hypocrisy at every turn in this debate. For example, Queen’s University took Macdonald’s name off its law school, but there is no discussion about changing the university’s name.
“If they’re so upset about all this, take the Queen’s name off the university entirely,” Walker said, quite miffed. “After all, Victoria was one of the worst colonizers of all.”
Walker hopes to grow the new institute into something that can provide ongoing analysis and contributions to current and future debates over renaming things.
“The truth really matters,” he said. “That’s what we’re all about here.”
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