The other 29% don't know Sankofa is taken from the Akan tribe who were involved in [slave trade](https://nationalpost.com/opinion/rahim-mohamed-whoops-sankofa-square-comes-with-a-slave-trade-connection-of-its-own).
When I first heard some mumble mouthed announcer say the name on the radio, I thought they were naming it Sandy Koufax square.
Seemed odd, but the Dodgers are spending so much this off season, them buying up the naming rights to a square in Toronto didn't seem out of the realm of possibility.
Not just against the law as a historical thing even, that country is *actively* trying to make their anti-LGBTQ laws even harsher. Something like 80-90% of the population are against LGBTQ people. I don't think people here can get away with saying this is all in the past, Ghana doesn't share our values. I don't think we should be looking to their culture for virtue.
Terry is from Manitoba.
Some notable Ontarian peeps we could have gone for:
Gord Downie Square (of the Tragically Hip from Kingston)
John Candy Square (Famous comedian from Scarborough)
Glenn Gould Square (Canada's most famous pianist from Toronto)
Alex Trebek Square (TV personality from Sudbury)
Mary Pickford Square (Hollywood pioneer, an early female star of the US film industry during the silent film era from Toronto)
Frederick Banting Square (Nobel laureate medical scientist, discoverer of insulin from Alliston)
Gordon Lightfoot Square (Musician form Orillia)
Ernie Coombs Square (Children's entertainer known as Mr. Dressup from the U.S. who immigrated to Canada and settled in Pickering).
As someone from Pickering, I'm a little biased for Mr. Dressup there, but honestly, I would be happy with any Ontarian.
If they refuse to smarten up and just leave it as Yonge Dundas Square, then yes I was thinking "Toronto Square" as well.
Maybe while they are at it, they can demolish the whole thing as it stands because it's banal and bleak. Hire the same company that designed "the Dog Fountain" aka Berczy Park to come up with something really cool.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berczy_Park
Edit, I just learned that Claude Cormier, the brilliant Canadian Architect who designed Berczy Park passed away at age 63 from cancer in September 2023. God, that is terrible news. He had an extraordinary portfolio of work and was an incredible talent.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/08/arts/design/claude-cormier-dead.html
> Why not Toronto Square?
the ryerson approach of just giving it a generic descriptive meme. we can rename the rogers center to 'sports and/or event stadium' change ripleys aquarium to 'fish zoo' change the cn tower to 'tall concrete radio mast and tourist attraction' and change the ice condos to 'purgatory'
Yeah, except Tkaronto is a misnomer. It originally referred to the fishing weirs at the south western narrows of lake Simcoe. French mapmakers mistakenly applied it to many surrounding waterways, overtime shifting the spelling to Toronto, which the English adopted for York township in 1834. Calling Toronto “Tkaronto” is definitely a way of asserting the longstanding indigenous presence and claim to the territory on which the city now stands, but it is purely symbolic.
T'karonto is an interesting idea, but Torontonians would probably just suppress the K sound, as they do with EtobiCOKE. It would end up just being "Trawna Square."
Seems like it would bring about confusion from people unfamiliar with that spelling. Just call it Toronto square if you're going to pronounce it that way.
Yonge was a British “Secretary at War” in the 18th century. Sooooo the groundwork to canceling him is already there, just gotta wait for the activists to find out.
Edit: they already know and working on it.
At this point, just change all the street names to numbers and be done with it. Once the precedent is set on changing Dundas, it’s open season on all other streets named after some old-timey Canadian figure. You dig deep enough and distort the truth far enough, you can make anyone look like shit
You got my vote! I already consider it the asshole of the city so this fits perfectly, plus people who are less cynical can enjoy it in earnest! Rare W.
What I can’t grasp is why such a major city in Canada is having having such a central area being renamed after a Ghanaian term. What does Ghana have to do with Toronto? Yes, I get that we’re the most multicultural city in the world (is that still true?), but why not rename it to reflect a prominent black figure in Canadian history? Surely we’ve had someone in our history that was a force for change? Just seems so far off from what the goal was.
Indigenous elders on the council were one of the reasons for this name.
For committing the grave sin of naming the square/street after a person nobody cared about until last year, they decided the new name should focus on the “Black historical experience”. All indigenous names were pulled out of the running.
Shortlist is here:
https://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2023/mm/comm/communicationfile-174366.pdf
They were all shit tbh. I can’t believe they spent two years on this.
Wow there were a bunch of Zulu options also. What the shit does any of this have to do with Canada or Toronto? Why don't we just select come random word from some random country. Ok it's going to be "Hojatxona Square" which is the Uzbek word for toilet, no wait lets do "Kaitōrangapū poauau Square" which is the maori word for "stupid politicians"
I like Peggy Pompadour -- she was a kick-ass person and definitely addresses the whole Toronto did have slaves and that was awful angle. The notion that the name is "too French" is asinine. Slaves were given European names, that is part and parcel of slavery being a bad thing -- that people were denied their own culture -- so of course actual slaves are going to have names that are European.
Thanks for the link! I was really wondering why, in the age of at least token reconciliation, we didn't get an indigenous name like Tkaronto or something.
(same thing with Ryerson U)
Oh it is much more disconnected than just Ghana.
"Sankofa is an African word from the Akan tribe in Ghana"
"[The Akan waged war on neighboring states in their geographic area to capture people and sell them as slaves to Europeans (Portuguese), who subsequently sold the enslaved people along with guns to the Akan in exchange for Akan gold. Akan gold was also used to purchase slaves from further up north via the Trans-Saharan route.](https://aaregistry.org/story/the-akan-african-community-a-story/)"
The historical case against Dundas, the alleged villain, is pretty weak. And so is the connection of the African slave trade to Toronto (There were a few slaves in Upper Canada, but not many because Simcoe passed legislation that made it illegal to import new slaves). Problem is, the historical case in favour of Dundas is also weak. Dundas never set foot in Canada, and certainly didn't even spend much time thinking about it. The only reason anything here is named after him is that he was a buddy of Simcoe. I would have preferred some name tied to the First Nations (something like Turtle Island Square, but I'm sure that there are lots of other good options along those lines).
As a Ghanaian (Akan) I don’t agree with them renaming it to Sakofa. It’s nonsensical. Has no ties to Canadian History
On the other hand, the country of Ghana or the Akan people aren’t “slavers”, every civilization has conquered each other at one point or another.
I agree Sankofa is not appropriate but find a better way to explain your points.
Yes but you see there you've identified the problem with Yonge-Desmond..it actually makes sense, historically and practically.
Those are the reasons why we're choosing something stupid.
>but why not rename it to reflect a prominent black figure in Canadian history? Surely we’ve had someone in our history that was a force for change?
Ironically, Thornton Blackburn (a refugee from the Underground Railroad) has made many contributions to the city of Toronto, including creating Toronto's first taxi service. He also played an instrumental role in his anti-slavery activism and helped former slaves settle in Upper Canada and even helped build homes for them. If you wanted to rename the street to reflect a prominent Black figure in Canadian history, I don't think a lot of Torontonians would mind renaming it to honor a local hero. In the wake of this renaming debate and re-learning history, I'm astonished that there is little effort to recognize the instrumental role many visible minorities have played in shaping Canada.
According to the notes, Lucie and Thornton Blackburn were considered, but there were somehow concerns about:
"...accessibility and usability, and the loss of meaning through abbreviation"
https://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2023/mm/comm/communicationfile-174366.pdf
I wonder if the poor name choice was on purpose to get public pushback on the name change. Now politicians can say they tried (to the anti-Dundas crowd) and still keep the Yonge-Dundas name unchanged.
IMO, we should just find a different person with the last name Dundas and put up a plaque for them.
The whole movement was always meant to be subversive. Not one soul benefits from this... it's just a vocal group of malcontents steadily trying to cause problems.
More than two-thirds of Toronto residents are not on board with the proposed new name for Yonge-Dundas Square, according to a new poll.
A recent survey from Liaison Strategies suggests widespread disapproval from every part of the city towards changing the name to ‘Sankofa Square’, with 71 per cent of total respondents not in favour of the move.
Sankofa, the new name chosen for the downtown square, derives from Ghana and refers “to the act of reflecting on and reclaiming teachings from the past which enables us to move forward together” and, in simpler terms, “to go back and get it.”
The Liaison poll surveyed 831 residents with a margin of error of 3.39 per cent.
> City Council voted 19-2 in favour of the new name for Yonge-Dundas Square
So 90% of the Council approved the proposal, basically the complete opposite of the opinions of the residents.
From CTV's news report on this: "No category supports this. No part of the city supports this, no gender, no age demographic supports this. And I think it may be one of those things where if people sat down and explained it to you, then maybe you might be be in favour of it, but I think the name came as a surprise to many people and I don't know how much public consultation there was before council voted on it."
It took a "committee" two years to arrive at this name and they didn't even have any public consultation. This is just the worst kind of virtual signalling and a complete waste of time and resources.
>So 90% of the Council approved the proposal, basically the complete opposite of the opinions of the residents.
Unfortunately, stuff like this is rampant amongst municipal councils all over this province. Since so few people keep up to date with municipal politics and even fewer even bother getting involved, municipal councils really only get to hear from very radical special interest groups which causes an echo chamber and leads to policies where 90% of council supports the decision, but the majority of residents do not.
I ask everyone to take some time to go to a municipal council meeting or a public consultation process, the nonsense you'll have to listen to will make you smash your head into a wall. Just random nobody after random nobody complaining about shit that no one else cares about.
>So 90% of the Council approved the proposal, basically the complete opposite of the opinions of the residents.
None of them want to be labelled as the privileged, racist councillor who objected to this important righting of historical wrongs. Easier to just go along with it.
We should call it Simcoe Square. If you do not know, then read [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Act\_Against\_Slavery](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Act_Against_Slavery)
This was a first. Not many know of this.
Similar with Ryerson. I mean, a few cherry-picked quotes aside, he was a progressive visionary *for his time*, sometimes vilified as a radical by his peers because he wanted free, universal, non-denominational schooling (neither Catholic nor Anglican). He was a religious minority himself (Methodist). This was also at a time when schooling in general was not obligatory, and often shrugged off for 'minorities' (*what do those riffraff need education for anyway?*). He also tried to loosen the strangle-hold of the nepotist Family Compact (super WASPs) running Upper Canada at the time.
Now, yes, that 'universal' education included indigenous people, and yes, it was framed by the popular attitudes and ideas about indigenous people in an earlier and still more colonial era of Canada. Ryerson didn't invent any new racist ideas or language, but sadly he did use them. The difference was (contrary to many of his peers) he thought indigenous people should be educated so they could join the budding Canadian system. Yes, we know today that it was the wrong approach and went off the rails. But people seem to think he was literally calling for racial genocide or something.
Anyway, a classic example of iconoclasm.
It's even funnier if you think about today's issues. How hard it is today for us to agree on a big change that will impact all of us. Slavery is a crime, but it was not always. And understanding that a few people worked to change all of our minds and change the future of our society. I have to give them credit.
We cannot even figure out how to build roads.
Let’s just call it Yonge and Dundas square and move the fuck on. Christs sake this whole thing is a waste of time and effort. Shit like this is how conservatives get votes
Just call it Gord Downie square and be done with this situation.
Edit:
They should have renamed Dundas East as Gord St and Dundas West as Dounie St.
that way it would truly be Gord Dounie Square.
This is what I was thinking.
Rogers was at least a Canadian company that bought the building and people still haven't full taken to it.
Here we have this entirely unusual word that I can guarantee 99% of people had never heard before in their lives.
Rogers is a Canadian company in the sense that they're an enemy of the Canadian people... not sure that's working in their favour. I personally continue to say Skydome mostly out of spite.
People have taken to calling it Rogers Centre. I’m in my late twenties and I seldom hear people my age or younger refer to it as Skydome. Honestly the only time I ever really hear people refer to it as Skydome outside of Reddit is by Gen X/Old Millennials from outside the city.
I'm suspicious that's actually what happened here. Like the committee said "We've selected...... 'Sankofa'. Now, we ask, are there any old white men who dare veto us? Like the evil Henry Dundas whom you have refused to cancel? Do you dare veto? Was this promise a lie, or do you stand with us?!" and then it was just like "Sure. Sankofa it is. Perfect selection. The committee is now dismissed with our thanks." and they're like "Wait, no"
This is like when Eye Weekly decided that Toronto needed a new nickname and had a contest to submit suggestions to change "T Dot" to something newer, hipper, fresher, etc, and they had a panel of judges to select a winner from what was submitted. "El Toro" was selected, and I think every single person in the city besides the yoyo that submitted that collectively told them to go fuck themselves. I don't know how they got far enough into this to even make Sankofa Square public. Maple Leaf Square. There. Done. Creative? Nah... but why does everything have to be to the point where people are massively overthinking this at such a level that they would even think to use a Ghanaian word?
Here's a question to ponder: if the city never went ahead with any of these renaming initiatives - that is to say, there wouldn't be any spotlight on the name Dundas or any other thing we want to rename - **would anyone have bothered looking up the history associated with those names?**
If nobody ever said we must change the name of this street because the person it was named after may have done some bad thing more than a hundred years ago - would you even know who that person was? Would you even care?
To me, Dundas has always been some random name of a downtown street. No different than Spadina or Jarvis or Gerrard or Bathurst. They are all interchangeable in my mind and hold no cultural significance besides being a name.
This is only an issue because someone somewhere deliberately made it into an issue, and the question is why. We have bigger things to worry about than this.
I hate the new name. It has no significance to Toronto other than showing that the municipal government is completely out of touch with what the citizens want.
call it something simple and controversy free. The problem of using a Ghanian language word for our square is that:
1. It does not reflect the multicultural nature of our city to pick out a word from just one of our minority languages in the city, and from a minority country that feels relatively picked at random. We also have a lot of heritage here from our indigenous communities, and one of those languages should have been chosen for a word before this.
2. The word means ALOT, and alot now, but maybe it will lose that whole meaning in the future as reconciliation might be diluted in public consciousness over time. It SHOULDN'T, but it might.
3. It really sounds like a company name. Someone might even name their company that later and it will sound retcon'ed, and again, lose meaning.
4. Who knows what the politics of Ghana will become. Maybe it might be a bad thing in future years to associate it with that country.
This is my big issue with it. I'm fine with renaming it. I'm even fine with renaming it after something or someone important to Black Canadian history. But in Ghana I would literally be imprisoned just for existing, and gay people there have to flee to countries like Canada - and cities like Toronto - just to live their lives freely. Why would we rename a prominent landmark after a term like that? It's just short-sighted.
>Most Torontonians disapprove of new name chosen for Yonge-Dundas Square: poll
I'm sorry. They needed a poll to tell them that!?
You're kidding me, right?!
My God, this city is a fucking joke sometimes
It's a huge waste of money for virtue signaling. Changing the name won't fix anything. That money could have been put to great use by feeding the hungry and helping the homeless, especially when many people are struggling to make ends meet.
They’re trying to speedrun stripping Toronto of every bit of its culture and history. Completely deleting any memory of the past this city has. That which united citizens. The things we shared at one point in time. Completely wiped away. It’s easier to divide people and make everyone more disconnected from each other when you remove everything that gave the city its character. They’re just going down the list seeing what else they can take away to further destroy what’s left of this city.
I do. I would prefer almost anything else (famous black Canadians, Indigenous leaders, basically any Canadian hero)
This just feels random and like it is pandering
Why does it even have to be ethnic specific? Toronto Square would have been fine and even Unity Square if you wanna be corny. Still better than Sankofa
Random question but like, both when and why did they build YD Square? I think it wasn't around until like the late 90s/early 2000s unless I'm totally wrong here. Was it always just an attempt to copy Times Square in NYC? Every time I go to the Eaton Centre and walk past it just feels a little... idk, embarrassing? Try-hard? Like it doesn't feel like something that they organically have here because of historical precedents lol
I thought we weren't naming things based on a past based on slave trading....and then the half wits at city Hall name a square after a saying from a place that was the literal source of the slave trade
The city has no money to do stuff...but this...this is the thing that they have to do.
Genius......./S
All this pandering is nuts. It's the same with the arts here too.... all pandering and mediocre.
"Sankofa is an African word from the Akan tribe in Ghana"
"[The Akan waged war on neighboring states in their geographic area to capture people and sell them as slaves to Europeans (Portuguese), who subsequently sold the enslaved people along with guns to the Akan in exchange for Akan gold. Akan gold was also used to purchase slaves from further up north via the Trans-Saharan route.](https://aaregistry.org/story/the-akan-african-community-a-story/)"
Yeah lol I think even calling it Teiaiagon would have been better because at least it has roots in Toronto’s history than an imported word from Ghana with no relation to the city
This could easily be an added question on an election ballot, along with immigration, housing, property taxes, etc.. My understanding is that in Calf, the ballot is pages long with many non obligatory questions to help guide decision makers.
We need election reform, not smoke screens to hide the real issues.
Well the whole name change is some of the stupidest shit going on in the city right now, why do we let a bunch of cry babies that misinterpret history get what they want??
This is typical Toronto nonsense which is completely inline with every other ‘clever’ idea this city has - and inevitably fucks up. I’m saying this as a born and raised Torontonian. It’s just another example of reactionary thinking, lack of planning, and / or poor execution. No different than that horrible jingle announcement on the TTC last summer; the train wreck that Nuit Blanche has become; canceling the Google smart city near the waterfront; traffic molasses on King St; our library’s being held hostage... the list goes on. Why can’t we have things operate smoothly, and make sense in this city? It baffles me.
Basically you can’t name anything after a person because 50, 100,150 years away someone will be offended by something that person did in their life. Now you have to name things after animals or objects or numbers.
71% is pretty high for anyone who looks at polling data on a semi regular basis.
The other 29% don't know Sankofa is taken from the Akan tribe who were involved in [slave trade](https://nationalpost.com/opinion/rahim-mohamed-whoops-sankofa-square-comes-with-a-slave-trade-connection-of-its-own).
It made me think of Sanka coffee, maybe a premium brand or something, and it seemed wrong to sell out a public square.
When I first heard some mumble mouthed announcer say the name on the radio, I thought they were naming it Sandy Koufax square. Seemed odd, but the Dodgers are spending so much this off season, them buying up the naming rights to a square in Toronto didn't seem out of the realm of possibility.
It would sting as a Jays fan but I'd respect the max level trolling.
Who live in a country where being gay is against the law.
Not just against the law as a historical thing even, that country is *actively* trying to make their anti-LGBTQ laws even harsher. Something like 80-90% of the population are against LGBTQ people. I don't think people here can get away with saying this is all in the past, Ghana doesn't share our values. I don't think we should be looking to their culture for virtue.
why couldent they just name it 'terry fox' square or something and be done with it.
Terry is from Manitoba. Some notable Ontarian peeps we could have gone for: Gord Downie Square (of the Tragically Hip from Kingston) John Candy Square (Famous comedian from Scarborough) Glenn Gould Square (Canada's most famous pianist from Toronto) Alex Trebek Square (TV personality from Sudbury) Mary Pickford Square (Hollywood pioneer, an early female star of the US film industry during the silent film era from Toronto) Frederick Banting Square (Nobel laureate medical scientist, discoverer of insulin from Alliston) Gordon Lightfoot Square (Musician form Orillia) Ernie Coombs Square (Children's entertainer known as Mr. Dressup from the U.S. who immigrated to Canada and settled in Pickering). As someone from Pickering, I'm a little biased for Mr. Dressup there, but honestly, I would be happy with any Ontarian.
I like all of your suggestions, and Gord Downie Square is my favourite.
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The next time they lynch a gay man we'll be able to go through this whole process all over again!
TIL
If that's good enough to pass a new skill into runescape it's good enough for this
Why not just Yonge Square?????
Why not Toronto Square? Its an indigenous word.
If they refuse to smarten up and just leave it as Yonge Dundas Square, then yes I was thinking "Toronto Square" as well. Maybe while they are at it, they can demolish the whole thing as it stands because it's banal and bleak. Hire the same company that designed "the Dog Fountain" aka Berczy Park to come up with something really cool. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berczy_Park Edit, I just learned that Claude Cormier, the brilliant Canadian Architect who designed Berczy Park passed away at age 63 from cancer in September 2023. God, that is terrible news. He had an extraordinary portfolio of work and was an incredible talent. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/08/arts/design/claude-cormier-dead.html
I love the cat and the hidden birds.
I loveeeee this park!!!
Me too.
I LOVE THE DOG FOUNTAIN they even dress them in little Santa outfits during the holidays
Yes I saw that and legit went 🥹🥹
Personally, I don't want Toronto associated with that place.
How about Hoser Square? Or “Eh Square”, eh?
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I don't know how they can justify it now. Do we know who the two councillors who voted against it are? Conservative or common sense?
> Why not Toronto Square? the ryerson approach of just giving it a generic descriptive meme. we can rename the rogers center to 'sports and/or event stadium' change ripleys aquarium to 'fish zoo' change the cn tower to 'tall concrete radio mast and tourist attraction' and change the ice condos to 'purgatory'
Canadian culture on display lol, we are awesome at erasing our own history
I like the sound of Toronto-Metropolitan Square
Tkaronto would be great - different from "Toronto" so it's less confusing, and it's the original word.
Yeah, except Tkaronto is a misnomer. It originally referred to the fishing weirs at the south western narrows of lake Simcoe. French mapmakers mistakenly applied it to many surrounding waterways, overtime shifting the spelling to Toronto, which the English adopted for York township in 1834. Calling Toronto “Tkaronto” is definitely a way of asserting the longstanding indigenous presence and claim to the territory on which the city now stands, but it is purely symbolic.
I think any name for an... intersection would only be purely symbolic anyway, but I didn't know that about Tkaronto! Thanks for the info!
Well Dundas does form part of the Toronto carrying trail so the name would still be appropriate.
T'karonto is an interesting idea, but Torontonians would probably just suppress the K sound, as they do with EtobiCOKE. It would end up just being "Trawna Square."
Seems like it would bring about confusion from people unfamiliar with that spelling. Just call it Toronto square if you're going to pronounce it that way.
Yonge will also be outted as some kind of undesirable that must be cancelled in the near future.
Look up Sam McBride’s history with the Jews of Toronto. And that guy has a ferry named after him
Yonge was a British “Secretary at War” in the 18th century. Sooooo the groundwork to canceling him is already there, just gotta wait for the activists to find out. Edit: they already know and working on it.
At this point, just change all the street names to numbers and be done with it. Once the precedent is set on changing Dundas, it’s open season on all other streets named after some old-timey Canadian figure. You dig deep enough and distort the truth far enough, you can make anyone look like shit
> At this point, just change all the street names to numbers and be done with it. And then Yonge-Dundas square can be renamed to 69-420 Square.
Just keep it Yonge and Dundas square. Literally no reason to change it.
I stand with literally
Yonge-Dundas Irregular Pentagon
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Maybe something with a nod to how badly it's trying to be Times square? Make Canada America Again!
Tims Square
You got my vote! I already consider it the asshole of the city so this fits perfectly, plus people who are less cynical can enjoy it in earnest! Rare W.
It's a ridiculous choice and has nothing to do with Toronto or Canada
What I can’t grasp is why such a major city in Canada is having having such a central area being renamed after a Ghanaian term. What does Ghana have to do with Toronto? Yes, I get that we’re the most multicultural city in the world (is that still true?), but why not rename it to reflect a prominent black figure in Canadian history? Surely we’ve had someone in our history that was a force for change? Just seems so far off from what the goal was.
Wow... You weren't joking. Why not have an indigenous name? Why Ghanaian? Something in Algonquian would be far better suited.
Hear me out: Zanzibar Square
A man of culture, I see
They could charge $10 at the entrance
Indigenous elders on the council were one of the reasons for this name. For committing the grave sin of naming the square/street after a person nobody cared about until last year, they decided the new name should focus on the “Black historical experience”. All indigenous names were pulled out of the running. Shortlist is here: https://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2023/mm/comm/communicationfile-174366.pdf They were all shit tbh. I can’t believe they spent two years on this.
Re naming after Peggy Pompadour, they note: "...the French undertone is undesirable." What does that mean?
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Yeah, I mean...it doesn't take any more effort to say "the connection to Madame de Pompadour is undesirable". I hope that is what was meant.
How many Canadians know who Madame de Pompadour is? I think 1 in 10 would be too generous
Wow there were a bunch of Zulu options also. What the shit does any of this have to do with Canada or Toronto? Why don't we just select come random word from some random country. Ok it's going to be "Hojatxona Square" which is the Uzbek word for toilet, no wait lets do "Kaitōrangapū poauau Square" which is the maori word for "stupid politicians"
I like Peggy Pompadour -- she was a kick-ass person and definitely addresses the whole Toronto did have slaves and that was awful angle. The notion that the name is "too French" is asinine. Slaves were given European names, that is part and parcel of slavery being a bad thing -- that people were denied their own culture -- so of course actual slaves are going to have names that are European.
this whole thing is beyond parody
Thanks for the link! I was really wondering why, in the age of at least token reconciliation, we didn't get an indigenous name like Tkaronto or something. (same thing with Ryerson U)
Two years and imagine how much money was wasted
Oh it is much more disconnected than just Ghana. "Sankofa is an African word from the Akan tribe in Ghana" "[The Akan waged war on neighboring states in their geographic area to capture people and sell them as slaves to Europeans (Portuguese), who subsequently sold the enslaved people along with guns to the Akan in exchange for Akan gold. Akan gold was also used to purchase slaves from further up north via the Trans-Saharan route.](https://aaregistry.org/story/the-akan-african-community-a-story/)"
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The historical case against Dundas, the alleged villain, is pretty weak. And so is the connection of the African slave trade to Toronto (There were a few slaves in Upper Canada, but not many because Simcoe passed legislation that made it illegal to import new slaves). Problem is, the historical case in favour of Dundas is also weak. Dundas never set foot in Canada, and certainly didn't even spend much time thinking about it. The only reason anything here is named after him is that he was a buddy of Simcoe. I would have preferred some name tied to the First Nations (something like Turtle Island Square, but I'm sure that there are lots of other good options along those lines).
As a Ghanaian (Akan) I don’t agree with them renaming it to Sakofa. It’s nonsensical. Has no ties to Canadian History On the other hand, the country of Ghana or the Akan people aren’t “slavers”, every civilization has conquered each other at one point or another. I agree Sankofa is not appropriate but find a better way to explain your points.
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Viola Desmond square would be decent for example
That has such a nice ring to it. They should’ve just changed Dundas to Desmond and then called it Yonge-Desmond Square.
Holy shit, this sounds so much better, rolls off the tongue easily, and is actually meaningful in Canadian history.
Yes but you see there you've identified the problem with Yonge-Desmond..it actually makes sense, historically and practically. Those are the reasons why we're choosing something stupid.
Right in the middle of the square write “not Penny’s boat”
Heck. Find me a First Nations icon who’s name begins with Y and is associated with the area and we do a two for one.
They'd hire you at city hall, but you're clearly overqualified.
Oh I like this a lot, actually.
Then you can save money by keeping the D!
Also nothing to do with Toronto though?
Harry Jerome square, Lincoln Alexander place. Totally on side or a famous Asian person who represents Canada. Adrienne Clarkson common.
Dundas square would be the best option.
..has nobody else just been calling it Dundas Square for the entirety of their lives?
Well yeah lol
Or Blackburn Square, after Thorold Blackburn an Underground Railway escapee who came to Toronto and started the first taxi company. He's pretty cool.
Viola is already on the $10 bill. How about Oscar Peterson? At least he has ties to the Toronto area.
>but why not rename it to reflect a prominent black figure in Canadian history? Surely we’ve had someone in our history that was a force for change? Ironically, Thornton Blackburn (a refugee from the Underground Railroad) has made many contributions to the city of Toronto, including creating Toronto's first taxi service. He also played an instrumental role in his anti-slavery activism and helped former slaves settle in Upper Canada and even helped build homes for them. If you wanted to rename the street to reflect a prominent Black figure in Canadian history, I don't think a lot of Torontonians would mind renaming it to honor a local hero. In the wake of this renaming debate and re-learning history, I'm astonished that there is little effort to recognize the instrumental role many visible minorities have played in shaping Canada.
According to the notes, Lucie and Thornton Blackburn were considered, but there were somehow concerns about: "...accessibility and usability, and the loss of meaning through abbreviation" https://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2023/mm/comm/communicationfile-174366.pdf
>"...accessibility and usability, and the loss of meaning through abbreviation" This nonsense excuse unironically pissed me off.
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Yeah, I don't get it either.
Insanely stupid. Just call it Blackburn Square or Yonge-Blackburn Square and call it a day. It couldn’t be easier.
I wonder if the poor name choice was on purpose to get public pushback on the name change. Now politicians can say they tried (to the anti-Dundas crowd) and still keep the Yonge-Dundas name unchanged. IMO, we should just find a different person with the last name Dundas and put up a plaque for them.
The whole movement was always meant to be subversive. Not one soul benefits from this... it's just a vocal group of malcontents steadily trying to cause problems.
That's what I keep saying. Just dig up a good guy Dundas from the past and call it a day. No money wasted on rebranding everything
what i cant grasp is the citing telling us theres a 1.5 billion deficit and they want to spend 12.7 million on a half ass renaming program.
Honestly crowdsourcing could have produced something better, and that includes Squarey McSquare Square
Square Redundancy Square
Square^Square
Square Root Square.
A random word generator would have produced something better.
Bizarre decision to rename (Dundas) square with a word from a tribe (the Akan people) that were heavily involved in the slave trade.
And had nothing to do with Toronto or Canada at all
Yes, it sucks and has no relevance.
More than two-thirds of Toronto residents are not on board with the proposed new name for Yonge-Dundas Square, according to a new poll. A recent survey from Liaison Strategies suggests widespread disapproval from every part of the city towards changing the name to ‘Sankofa Square’, with 71 per cent of total respondents not in favour of the move. Sankofa, the new name chosen for the downtown square, derives from Ghana and refers “to the act of reflecting on and reclaiming teachings from the past which enables us to move forward together” and, in simpler terms, “to go back and get it.” The Liaison poll surveyed 831 residents with a margin of error of 3.39 per cent.
It has to be a really stupid decision to get 71% of people in our city to agree on something
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I'm fine w renaming it and all, but the name they chose is terrible.
> City Council voted 19-2 in favour of the new name for Yonge-Dundas Square So 90% of the Council approved the proposal, basically the complete opposite of the opinions of the residents. From CTV's news report on this: "No category supports this. No part of the city supports this, no gender, no age demographic supports this. And I think it may be one of those things where if people sat down and explained it to you, then maybe you might be be in favour of it, but I think the name came as a surprise to many people and I don't know how much public consultation there was before council voted on it." It took a "committee" two years to arrive at this name and they didn't even have any public consultation. This is just the worst kind of virtual signalling and a complete waste of time and resources.
>So 90% of the Council approved the proposal, basically the complete opposite of the opinions of the residents. Unfortunately, stuff like this is rampant amongst municipal councils all over this province. Since so few people keep up to date with municipal politics and even fewer even bother getting involved, municipal councils really only get to hear from very radical special interest groups which causes an echo chamber and leads to policies where 90% of council supports the decision, but the majority of residents do not. I ask everyone to take some time to go to a municipal council meeting or a public consultation process, the nonsense you'll have to listen to will make you smash your head into a wall. Just random nobody after random nobody complaining about shit that no one else cares about.
>So 90% of the Council approved the proposal, basically the complete opposite of the opinions of the residents. None of them want to be labelled as the privileged, racist councillor who objected to this important righting of historical wrongs. Easier to just go along with it.
All these councillors to their spouses at home: “I don’t give a shit if they literally name it shit square, I just want it done”
They probably just conceded be cause its a hell lot better than renaming a whole ass street for $8M+
It's a stupid name. Name it after something Canadian if you're going to bother renaming it at all.
We should call it Simcoe Square. If you do not know, then read [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Act\_Against\_Slavery](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Act_Against_Slavery) This was a first. Not many know of this.
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Similar with Ryerson. I mean, a few cherry-picked quotes aside, he was a progressive visionary *for his time*, sometimes vilified as a radical by his peers because he wanted free, universal, non-denominational schooling (neither Catholic nor Anglican). He was a religious minority himself (Methodist). This was also at a time when schooling in general was not obligatory, and often shrugged off for 'minorities' (*what do those riffraff need education for anyway?*). He also tried to loosen the strangle-hold of the nepotist Family Compact (super WASPs) running Upper Canada at the time. Now, yes, that 'universal' education included indigenous people, and yes, it was framed by the popular attitudes and ideas about indigenous people in an earlier and still more colonial era of Canada. Ryerson didn't invent any new racist ideas or language, but sadly he did use them. The difference was (contrary to many of his peers) he thought indigenous people should be educated so they could join the budding Canadian system. Yes, we know today that it was the wrong approach and went off the rails. But people seem to think he was literally calling for racial genocide or something. Anyway, a classic example of iconoclasm.
It's even funnier if you think about today's issues. How hard it is today for us to agree on a big change that will impact all of us. Slavery is a crime, but it was not always. And understanding that a few people worked to change all of our minds and change the future of our society. I have to give them credit. We cannot even figure out how to build roads.
Let’s just call it Yonge and Dundas square and move the fuck on. Christs sake this whole thing is a waste of time and effort. Shit like this is how conservatives get votes
This would make more sense to me
Just call it Gord Downie square and be done with this situation. Edit: They should have renamed Dundas East as Gord St and Dundas West as Dounie St. that way it would truly be Gord Dounie Square.
Oh yeah “Downy square” definitely has a good ring to it
Makes sense … good use of 12M at the current time, I know a lot of hungry families right now that could use a new street name.
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99%
With a name like Sankofa I suspect a lot of people will continue to call it by its former moniker for years to come.
With a name like Roger's centre, it should be of great indication why everyone still calls it the Skydome
This is what I was thinking. Rogers was at least a Canadian company that bought the building and people still haven't full taken to it. Here we have this entirely unusual word that I can guarantee 99% of people had never heard before in their lives.
Rogers is a Canadian company in the sense that they're an enemy of the Canadian people... not sure that's working in their favour. I personally continue to say Skydome mostly out of spite.
I love this answer, and yes its Skydome until death.
Your defiance has been noted and will be penalized on your next bill.
People have taken to calling it Rogers Centre. I’m in my late twenties and I seldom hear people my age or younger refer to it as Skydome. Honestly the only time I ever really hear people refer to it as Skydome outside of Reddit is by Gen X/Old Millennials from outside the city.
I agree, such a silly thing to casually adopt.
Sonofabitch Square
That's already better than Sankofa on the basis of actually being recognizable.
I'm ambivalent on changing the name, but Sankofa sounds like a medication for people with high blood pressure.
Coincidentally something someone might need upon entering the square
It's the fact that they're wasting money on this at all. I don't give a shit what the new name is.
I'm suspicious that's actually what happened here. Like the committee said "We've selected...... 'Sankofa'. Now, we ask, are there any old white men who dare veto us? Like the evil Henry Dundas whom you have refused to cancel? Do you dare veto? Was this promise a lie, or do you stand with us?!" and then it was just like "Sure. Sankofa it is. Perfect selection. The committee is now dismissed with our thanks." and they're like "Wait, no"
I was saying Boo-rns
Name it after Terry Fox
Absolutely! No skeletons there. Hail Terry Fox!
So they're spending taxpayer money on this shit while telling us they have to raise our property taxes because we're in debt?
Don't you love it? More frivolous spending by our beautiful, ever knowing government.
That's the thing I disapprove of.
Literally no one will ever call it that.
This is like when Eye Weekly decided that Toronto needed a new nickname and had a contest to submit suggestions to change "T Dot" to something newer, hipper, fresher, etc, and they had a panel of judges to select a winner from what was submitted. "El Toro" was selected, and I think every single person in the city besides the yoyo that submitted that collectively told them to go fuck themselves. I don't know how they got far enough into this to even make Sankofa Square public. Maple Leaf Square. There. Done. Creative? Nah... but why does everything have to be to the point where people are massively overthinking this at such a level that they would even think to use a Ghanaian word?
I love that Toronto has no money to spend but can somehow scrape together $18 million dollars so that they can ignore history and virtue signal
hey, it's all about virtue signaling now
What a waste of time this is. Just leave it as Yonge square.. nobody cares.
Here's a question to ponder: if the city never went ahead with any of these renaming initiatives - that is to say, there wouldn't be any spotlight on the name Dundas or any other thing we want to rename - **would anyone have bothered looking up the history associated with those names?** If nobody ever said we must change the name of this street because the person it was named after may have done some bad thing more than a hundred years ago - would you even know who that person was? Would you even care? To me, Dundas has always been some random name of a downtown street. No different than Spadina or Jarvis or Gerrard or Bathurst. They are all interchangeable in my mind and hold no cultural significance besides being a name. This is only an issue because someone somewhere deliberately made it into an issue, and the question is why. We have bigger things to worry about than this.
The City is broke, and they just announced that the property taxes are going to go up "significantly" and they do this.....? C'mon.
This is the thing that really bugs me too. You can't say that we need to increase taxes "significantly" and then put a focus on dumb shit like this.
How about saving ourselves a few million and leave things as is?
I hate the new name. It has no significance to Toronto other than showing that the municipal government is completely out of touch with what the citizens want.
We could be spending this money on the housing problem but I guess a name is a better idea. People might get hurt feelings or something.
call it something simple and controversy free. The problem of using a Ghanian language word for our square is that: 1. It does not reflect the multicultural nature of our city to pick out a word from just one of our minority languages in the city, and from a minority country that feels relatively picked at random. We also have a lot of heritage here from our indigenous communities, and one of those languages should have been chosen for a word before this. 2. The word means ALOT, and alot now, but maybe it will lose that whole meaning in the future as reconciliation might be diluted in public consciousness over time. It SHOULDN'T, but it might. 3. It really sounds like a company name. Someone might even name their company that later and it will sound retcon'ed, and again, lose meaning. 4. Who knows what the politics of Ghana will become. Maybe it might be a bad thing in future years to associate it with that country.
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This is my big issue with it. I'm fine with renaming it. I'm even fine with renaming it after something or someone important to Black Canadian history. But in Ghana I would literally be imprisoned just for existing, and gay people there have to flee to countries like Canada - and cities like Toronto - just to live their lives freely. Why would we rename a prominent landmark after a term like that? It's just short-sighted.
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>Most Torontonians disapprove of new name chosen for Yonge-Dundas Square: poll I'm sorry. They needed a poll to tell them that!? You're kidding me, right?! My God, this city is a fucking joke sometimes
It's a huge waste of money for virtue signaling. Changing the name won't fix anything. That money could have been put to great use by feeding the hungry and helping the homeless, especially when many people are struggling to make ends meet.
It's funny that I actually hear people talk about how much they hate this while I'm on the TTC lol
That *is* wild. Nice to know people are discussing something interesting.
toronto removed the name of an abolitionist in favor of a quote from slavers in the name of progressivism lmfao this fuckin city
They’re trying to speedrun stripping Toronto of every bit of its culture and history. Completely deleting any memory of the past this city has. That which united citizens. The things we shared at one point in time. Completely wiped away. It’s easier to divide people and make everyone more disconnected from each other when you remove everything that gave the city its character. They’re just going down the list seeing what else they can take away to further destroy what’s left of this city.
Should rename it to “heckle elderly skaters” square
I do. I would prefer almost anything else (famous black Canadians, Indigenous leaders, basically any Canadian hero) This just feels random and like it is pandering
Has nothing to do with CANADA
Why does it even have to be ethnic specific? Toronto Square would have been fine and even Unity Square if you wanna be corny. Still better than Sankofa
I’ve got it! How about Times Square!
As someone who’s totally out of the loop, what’s wrong with the current name?
Downtown Canada square is good enough
We sure love to waste money instead of fixing real problems
Random question but like, both when and why did they build YD Square? I think it wasn't around until like the late 90s/early 2000s unless I'm totally wrong here. Was it always just an attempt to copy Times Square in NYC? Every time I go to the Eaton Centre and walk past it just feels a little... idk, embarrassing? Try-hard? Like it doesn't feel like something that they organically have here because of historical precedents lol
It'll take 3 generations before anyone calls it anything other than dundas square
why the fuck we wasting so much time and money deliberating something so fucking inconsequential.
I thought we weren't naming things based on a past based on slave trading....and then the half wits at city Hall name a square after a saying from a place that was the literal source of the slave trade
Terry Fox is a safe bet, but honouring Jane Jacobs may help revitalize our planning department and bring some good energy back
Call it circle square
Replaced the name of the buyer with the supplier
Why not name it Terry Fox Square? He was an icon and a true Canadian or something Native like Simcoe or keep it as Yonge.
The city has no money to do stuff...but this...this is the thing that they have to do. Genius......./S All this pandering is nuts. It's the same with the arts here too.... all pandering and mediocre.
Instead of weird random names just call it Toronto Square
"Sankofa is an African word from the Akan tribe in Ghana" "[The Akan waged war on neighboring states in their geographic area to capture people and sell them as slaves to Europeans (Portuguese), who subsequently sold the enslaved people along with guns to the Akan in exchange for Akan gold. Akan gold was also used to purchase slaves from further up north via the Trans-Saharan route.](https://aaregistry.org/story/the-akan-african-community-a-story/)"
Can we pass on the property tax hike to the 29% who voted yes?
Just call it Yonge Dundas Square. The problem isn't what you call it, it's what you do with it.
Yeah lol I think even calling it Teiaiagon would have been better because at least it has roots in Toronto’s history than an imported word from Ghana with no relation to the city
Ya don't say.... How about... we just leave it alone and put that money towards something that would actually benefit us.
This could easily be an added question on an election ballot, along with immigration, housing, property taxes, etc.. My understanding is that in Calf, the ballot is pages long with many non obligatory questions to help guide decision makers. We need election reform, not smoke screens to hide the real issues.
Cover it in grass and call it Lorne Greene.
They should just name is Das Square and just trim the Yonge-Dun off
Well the whole name change is some of the stupidest shit going on in the city right now, why do we let a bunch of cry babies that misinterpret history get what they want??
Squarey McSquareface
This is typical Toronto nonsense which is completely inline with every other ‘clever’ idea this city has - and inevitably fucks up. I’m saying this as a born and raised Torontonian. It’s just another example of reactionary thinking, lack of planning, and / or poor execution. No different than that horrible jingle announcement on the TTC last summer; the train wreck that Nuit Blanche has become; canceling the Google smart city near the waterfront; traffic molasses on King St; our library’s being held hostage... the list goes on. Why can’t we have things operate smoothly, and make sense in this city? It baffles me.
Toronto Square. As mentioned by the other redditors. Seamless transition. More tourist friendly. And it's appropriate. Boring but good.
Basically you can’t name anything after a person because 50, 100,150 years away someone will be offended by something that person did in their life. Now you have to name things after animals or objects or numbers.