The Toronto school board has voted to rename schools bearing the names of historical Canadian figures as part of initiatives to reject “namesakes tied to systems of oppression.”
On Feb. 19, the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) trustees voted 11–7 in favour of moving ahead with the renaming of Sir John A. Macdonald Collegiate Institute, Dundas Junior Public School, and Ryerson Community School.
The decision follows an October 2024 update to the board’s renaming procedure, which prioritizes names with indigenous elements or those that “reflect the diversity of Toronto.” In January, associate directors of education concluded a critical review and recommended renaming the schools, citing the “potential impact” of these names on students and staff due to “colonial history, anti-indigenous racism and their connection to systems of oppression.”
The renaming process has faced pushback from a group of historians. In a Feb. 6 letter to the TDSB, the Canadian Institute for Historical Education (CIHE) highlighted the historical figures’ contributions to Canada and the abolition of slavery. They also called accusations of colonialism and racism against them “driven more by popular opinion and prejudice.”
“Activists would have these figures, and no doubt others yet to come, purged from our collective memory without a proper evaluation of the historical evidence, of the context of the values of their time, or of their circumstances and core achievements. These campaigns, in short, have far more to do with ideology than evidence,” CIHE says, while advocating for an evidence-based process to guide the naming or renaming of public spaces.
‘Not Based on Historic Expertise’
Several trustees who voted against the renaming raised concerns about the lack of historian input on the context of the decision.
James Li, trustee for Ward 13, expressed concerns that, without input from historians—particularly given Toronto’s abundance of such expertise—the decision would be seen as political.
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“We stand to be challenged on whether or not we made the correct decision on these policies every day, and we have a duty that we owe to our stakeholders to justify, every time, to the best of our abilities and use the most irrefutable sources possible on why we have made the right decision,” Li said.
In response, Audley Salmon, TDSB associate director of learning transformation and equity, noted that the decision aims to provide a “sense of belonging” for students and faculty.
“It’s actually not about history; it’s actually about the impact that the history has on our students that are in our schools, and our staff, based on the sense of belonging for our students based on the names,” he said, adding that the academics the reference committee consulted were those focused on “addressing students who have been historically marginalized within our system.”
Pei Weidong, trustee for Ward 12, challenged the TDSB’s decision to consult academics with expertise in sociology rather than history.
Three York University researchers provided the historical context for TDSB, including Carl James, Susan Dion, and Vidya Shah, all from the Faculty of Education. “The three researchers have PHDs in sociology and have a range of expertise in anti-oppression, anti-racist education, as well as indigenous education,” Jeffrey Caton, centrally assigned principal at TDSB, told the trustees on Feb. 19.
In a Feb. 21 interview with The Epoch Times, James pointed out that the effort to rename buildings and institutions is not limited to Toronto, but is also occurring outside of Canada. He said this reflects a reconsideration of the “historical message” that the names of historical figures carry.
“Schools are very important spaces where that creation of the message that we want students to have is happening,” he said, adding that schools are “reconstruct[ing] education” to address Canada’s colonial history. It is “an education constructed in relation to now, and in relation to what we want students to do and think going forward: choose reconciliation,” James said.
The Epoch Times also contacted Dion and Shah for comment, but didn’t hear back as of publication time.
Contributions
During the Feb. 19 board meeting, Salmon reaffirmed that schools under the TDSB will continue to teach about the contributions of Macdonald, Ryerson, and Dundas in various courses.
“We’re not rewriting history. That’s not what this is about. This is actually about the impact that individuals have had on our staff and our students, based on where we are now. And part of what it’s also about is the fact that history has changed a little bit,” he said during the board meeting.
“History has to be taught through different lenses, and, just like school renaming, has to be looked at not just from one lens, and that’s what we are bringing forward today,” he added.
Salmon acknowledged Sir John A. Macdonald’s contribution to building Canada as a nation and parliamentary democracy, while saying that his government was linked to agents who drove indigenous people off their reserves during the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway. The CIHE says some accusations about Canada’s founding prime minister “seem to have been made in haste and with very little attention to detail,” and that he signed treaties with indigenous peoples across the prairies.
The CIHE aslo credited Henry Dundas for his role as an abolitionist and ally of British politician William Wilberforce in the fight against slavery. While acknowledging Dundas’s role as an abolitionist, Salmon criticized his proposal for a gradual plan to abolish the British slave trade amid the war with France in the 1790s.
Meanwhile, Salmon said that ideas from Egerton Ryerson, a 19th-century Methodist minister, contributed to the creation of the residential school system in Canada, despite him not being directly involved. The CIHE noted that Ryerson has been “falsely accused” of being the “architect” of the residential school system, pointing out that the schools predated his birth and that the system was established long after his time.
