LILLEY: Where was the outrage as Canadians renamed our own history?

Although different in some ways when renaming comes from a foreign power, valid question nevertheless:

…My question for all the people screaming about the renaming of Lake Ontario is: where were they as we renamed schools, roads and more once named for Sir John A. Macdonald? Where were they as we removed our history by pulling down statues dedicated to our first prime minister?

Schools in Nova Scotia and Ontario had Sir John A.’s name dropped from them. Statues in Montreal, Kingston, Regina, Victoria and elsewhere were taken down.

In Saskatoon, John A. Macdonald Road was renamed miyo-wâhkôhtowin, a Cree word meaning “good relationships.” In Ottawa, a federally controlled road, the Sir John A. Macdonald Parkway, was renamed under the Trudeau government to Kichi Zībī Mīkan, an Algonquin phrase meaning Great River Road.

Where was the outrage over this by the people now furious about Donald Trump changing the name of Lake Ontario? Where was their national pride? Where was their demand that our history be respected?

What about when Egerton Ryerson had his statue torn down, his name taken off the university long associated with him over false claims of connections to residential schools?

Where was the outrage when Edward Cornwallis had his name and image stripped from our public spaces? When Justin Trudeau unilaterally took the name of Sir Hector-Louis Langevin, a Father of Confederation, off the building that housed the Prime Minister’s Office, why did these same people not step up and raise their voices?

Tearing down our own history

Here in Toronto, we recently renamed Yonge-Dundas Square to Sankofa Square on the false claim that Henry Dundas supported and extended slavery in the British Empire. Sankofa is a Ghanaian word, taken from the language of the people on the west coast of Africa who sold most of the slaves into the trans-Atlantic slave trade.

We have spent close to a decade stripping away our own history, being vandals to our own heritage, and most of the public has been silent….

Source: LILLEY: Where was the outrage as Canadians renamed our own history?