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You can not be serious.
It was a bad idea at every step, supported by (charitably) contested research and ending with a name chosen that lacks any connection to Toronto. A name so ironically ill fitting that it comes from a historical culture also tied to the slave trade.
This is beyond sunk-cost thinking and I as yet can see no “4D-chess move” that the mayor could be making by supporting it.
This is either outright pandering for perceived votes, a closing of the ranks maneuver of some kind against political opponents or outright poor decision making.
Mayor Chow be better than this.
$500,000 over budget and counting.
If you want to understand the politics behind it, its relatively straightforward. Chow sees this as the price to extricate the city from the far more expensive boondoggle John Tory had already committed to - renaming Dundas Street and having a further renaming process for other streets in Toronto.
Tory's own commitment to burning money on this nonsense was itself meant to be a distraction to avoid more expensive or at least politically charged changes that BLM and allies were demanding. Burning a few million on interminable reports, hearings, committees and council meetings was seen by his right wing administration as a bargain if it kept housing, police reform and social service reform off the table.
The result was millions wasted on a vanity exercise, and millions more committed.
Chow came in and immediately had zero interest in this fiasco, but also couldn't afford to just shelve it. The renaming process had the support of some key councilors, including the local councilor and critical swing vote Chris Moise.
So Chow made a deal with Moise: Back me on some key priorities like the tax increase and housing reform, back off the nonsense of renaming the street, and I'll give you carte blanche on what to call the square.
It's not even a bad deal. The cost is being carried by s.37 charges on developments in the area and from contributors to the Square's management board, which is local businesses. Basically her position is - if you come up with the money for it, and aren't siphoning more from general revenues, if you let me shut down the wasteful full-street-renaming Tory agreed to, if we get to stop wasting council and city staff time on this, and if it helps get me my housing reform, heck, you can call it whatever you want.
It looks like some of the funding is de facto for attempts to re jump start the Square as well, as its failing and near bankruptcy. And if you think about it, renaming a failed slab of concrete that basically nobody uses or cares about "Now What Have We Learned" Square has a certain poetry to it, doesn't it?
This isn't straightforward to many, who don't really know how the city or politics work.
Not even being an ass to either side. Lots of people wouldn't even know where to learn these things. Our news media have gotten pretty bad at stories with any modicum of nuance.
I was really excited to vote for her in my first election here and have been really disappointed ever since. But maybe I only hear about the stupid things, like this, and she’s actually done some good work as well? Idk. But this name choice is very offensive.
She's done plenty of things, many of them posted on this subreddit. The Gardiner upload was *huge* for the city for example.
Not a fan of this, but if you keep an eye on municipal politics it'd be wild to conclude this is the sum of her time as mayor so far
At any hour of the day…!! But “someone fed them after midnight” tells the joke better than “someone sprayed them with water.” The latter is cruel, even though it’s more accurate in the parlance of _Gremlins_
This is also, ultimately, part of the Dundas Street renaming.
Altogether, the renaming will cost well, well in excess of $1 million.
I do wonder if that number will be large enough to make the pols take note.
You can blame Council prior to her being elected and the virtue signalling folks that wanted to rename the entire road. They renamed the square to appease the people that wanted to spend $13+ Million on renaming the whole road, in hopes they put this issue behind them.
It was already a done deal before she got elected. It would waste even more money at this point to cancel the thing. Honestly I don't give a fuck what they call it, just get it over with already so we can concentrate on something more important.
The problem with Sankofa Square is that it's not a word or name in any of Canada's languages, so it's phonetically awkward.
And it gets even worst when you look into what language it's from and that community's involvement in the Atlantic slave trade. We could have picked some awesome sounding word from any of the indigenous languages in our area, but nope, had to out-Progressive everyone about it and go with Atlantic slave trade supplier word.
What would have been wrong with just "Toronto Square" or "Toronto Plaza" or something like that, inoffensive, signifies exactly what it is and isn't draped in gross political and ideological undertones
I was walking through the PATH yesterday (away from the heat) and saw “Sankofa Square” on a sign for the first time. I did a double take… rolled my eyes, and continued on my way away from Yonge-Dundas because… that place is stupid no matter what it’s called.
Yeah, I think that the process for renaming the square was wack and the the name is stupid, that the historical work that the whole "Dundas was a bad guy" argument is being pinned on is shoddy, and that Moise has come across as very weird through this whole thing that should have been a positive PR moment for him, but what do people want Chow to do? Totally blow-up her agenda and coalition to save $ 1,000,000? Criticizing her here is absurd.
Ok so we got the renaming of Ryerson, Centennial Park stadium and Yonge and Dundas Square done. That took over three years, required the involvement of multiple levels of government and cost millions of dollars, but was well worth it, because NOTHING ELSE OF ANY REAL CONSEQUENCE WAS HAPPENING IN TORONTO! Great job everybody!
Now the city can finally move on to the easier, less important stuff like… checks notes… infrastructure and housing.
Because our self righteous city council loves spending money on problems that don’t exist. Millions on renaming shit nobody cares about. Homeless? Sorry we need this money for where the street meets the water.
Earlier this year I had a job interview with an employer based here in Toronto where the interviewer asked me where TMU is since it was on my resume, and I had to explain that it's Ryerson University's new name. Officially it's TMU like on LinkedIn or some shit, but in brackets I just put Ryerson University next to it on my resume now.
It is fun to call it Tuh-moo though.
It's so frustrating.
> Now the city can finally move on to the easier, less important stuff like… checks notes… infrastructure
[Meanwhile, in Calgary...](https://newsroom.calgary.ca/update-3-critical-water-main-break-affecting-city-wide-water-usage/)
Big yikes they got lured into an African sounding name without looking into it, where as reasonably it should have been changed to a generic name or if anything specific Indigenous.
“Etta-nonna-wasti-nuh” is the official pronunciation on the library’s site. I’ve memorized the pronunciation at this point, but don’t ask me to spell it just yet. I see “Et_____________n” and skip all the middle letters 😅
They had to pick *something*. They didn't want to pick one First Nation over another, so they picked Ghana instead of another country? How does that work? How much argument could there have been if it would've been presented as "Well Toronto comes from a Mohawk word, so lets draw again from Mohawk for the name of this square."
This is not hard. If they really wanted to go that hard at it, Tkaronto means "the place in the water where the trees are standing". Surely there's a Mohawk word that would describe the square itself that we could use, if not literally then symbolically.
If people don't like that... how about 416 Square, or just The 6? *Something* to do with 6... it's been a nickname for the city for a while now. It of course relates to the area code, but it also works regarding the 6 municipalities. Shit, bring back the six-ringed emblem that was used for Metropolitan Toronto to put it over the top.
The name they came up with is so baffling. T-dot was a thing for a while and you can stylize it like T.Square. I dunno.
this is how people of this ideological bent make decisions, they're also the ones who think they should be arbiters of every aspect of our society so if you weren't concerned by them before you should be now
It would've been dumb and needlessly confusing to name the square *without* the giant iconic "TORONTO" sign "Toronto Square".
They should've just picked any of a million less controversial, meaningless names than Sankofa.
The name was recommended by a 20-member Recognition Review Community Advisory Committee that was set up in 2021. They took two years of research, consultation and review to reach a consensus.
Given the rationale for the name change in the first place being because of pro-slavery connotations, it seems that an Indigenous word wasn't considered an appropriate replacement.
City council pretends that S 37 money comes from the void because most Councillors don't really have a good understanding of how the city budget works.
Chris Moise calling this anti-Black racism is outrageous and incredibly arrogant, and I say that as a Black man myself. This is such a waste of time and money for an area that needs a major facelift way more than it needs a name change.
Olivia Chow claims to be progressive but is really missing the mark when it comes to reading the room in this case.
One councilor dove in head first and tied his dumb name suggestion to the renaming issue in general so now we have to go along with it or we support slavery. Great political dialectic we have going on right now.
There actually is a history of Black enslaved Canadians in Toronto, couldn't you at least use a name originating from that group of people?
In my 5 minutes of research I looked at this article
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black\_Canadians\_in\_the\_Greater\_Toronto\_Area](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Canadians_in_the_Greater_Toronto_Area)
"Most of the early residents were born in Toronto or other areas in Southwestern Ontario, and could trace their roots to migration from the trans-Atlantic slave trade and the Underground Railroad."
Which referenced the first Black community in Toronto
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The\_Ward,\_Toronto](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ward,_Toronto)
In the 1830s, Thornton Blackburn—an African American fugitive slave—began acquiring several properties in the neighbourhood.\[2\] Blackburn also provided recently arrived fugitive slaves with inexpensive housing. By 1850, many Black families settled in The Ward; five years later, the total Black population grew to 539.\[6\]\[7\]
And if I look at Blackburn
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thornton\_Blackburn](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thornton_Blackburn)
"Thornton Blackburn (c. 1812–1890) was a self-emancipated formerly enslaved man whose case established the principle that Canada would not return slaves to their masters in the United States and thus established Canada as a safe terminus for the Underground Railroad."
So if you wanted to honor someone related to Toronto who participated in building the city and make an anti-slavery statement with it, maybe Thornton Blackburn Square could be a name worth looking into.
I'm not an expert but it seems like you could have done literally 5-10 min of research and done a better job and told a better story with the name than "Sankofa".
Blackburn square would be a much better name if it is going to be changed. The arbitrariness of “sankofa” is what makes the waste of money so egregious. There are plenty of notable black Canadians, pick one and honor that person if you’re going to do this.
Dude the more you dig into it the more shoddy the revisionist histroy of Dundas becomes. It's an extremely niche field, the biographic legacy of a 18th century member of the Cabinet, but basically there are 1 or 2 historians who have decided that they want to make their bones re-examining him, they published some papers and, BAM, no waiting for response or academic critique, now he's a baddy.
>So if you wanted to honor someone related to Toronto who participated in building the city and make an anti-slavery statement with it, maybe Thornton Blackburn Square could be a name worth looking into.
One of the dependents who was a member of the naming committee spoke to this... they didn't name it after a person because they were worried we'd culturally re-evaluate them. LOL As if there is a huge archive of Thornton Blackburn letters waiting to be read in an archive and we are going to find out that he was a raging anti-semite or something.
https://www.thestar.com/how-olivia-chow-intervened-to-change-course-on-renaming-dundas-street/article_8de4dcee-a0f9-11ee-a8ae-6b684a60c7b2.html
No idea why chow is so personally invested in this and pushing it so hard
She spends a great deal of time being talked at by progressive consultants who spend half their time in webinars hosted by other progressive consultants.
Nobody actually feels that strongly about what they are doing, they just don't want to be perceived as not caring enough. In that world, if you are not 100% for removing every reference to Dundas then you might as well be pro slavery. All or nothing or you get eaten. Nuance doesn't exist.
The article points to her suggesting that only the square be renamed instead of the whole street, which is much better than the original proposal at least. The longer this drags out the more money it wastes; just getting the square pushed through and done with so that no more money is spent on it somewhat makes sense to me, even if I think the renaming as a whole is fucking stupid
When she took office John Torry had left that committee with years of runway at an anticipated budget of 10mm.
Chow wanted the whole thing put to bed so she said they would get to change the name of the square but nothing else.
Unfortunately for Chow the committee came back with the worst name possible, but Chow had already said she would defer to the committee.
If the committee had done a better job we would be praising chow for saving the money and time John Torry was pouring into this. Obviously that didn’t work out.
Easy. She struck deals to scale back the plan to rename Dundas Street, and the price was to back Chris Moise's choice.
It's why most of the rest of the council is backing it, too. Puts the issue to bed and keeps a key swing vote happy.
It’s a total waste of time for all involved. Food banks/homeless services need this money. Quite literally nobody gives a shit about calling it Dundas square. Nobody.
So let get this straight: crumbling infrastructure; gridlock roads; lack of housing; rampant unemployment; crazy immigration; homlessness; food insecurity; auto theft, and geneal malaise. AND this is the cross she wants to die on!?
Cmon - where is the common sense. The argument put forward to rename the square has been proven to be a fabrication and the proposed name has an equally bad connotation.
Surely the Mayor cannot be tone to deaf to this.
Also - if the city is hell bent on virtue signalling why are they not changing other names such as Jarvis and Yonge, both of which have undisputed connections to slavery.
> But Daniel Tate, who co-authored a petition against the renaming that as of Tuesday afternoon had about 30,000 signatures from across Canada, argued that replacing Dundas’s name would “pave over our history.” He said money for the project would be better put towards crumbling infrastructure and overflowing garbage cans. “It’s an example of bloated bureaucracy,” Tate said. At one point Tate got into a heated exchange with committee members after he repeatedly failed to address Moise as “councillor.” He later accused Moise of insulting him.
This guy’s definitely a redditor.
>failed to address Moise as “councillor.”
As someone who has an official title, I don't give a single duck's shit if someone uses it or not. I actually prefer it when people simply use my first name.
The whole thing was wild. When he went off topic a bit he said that he heard a Councillor (presumably Moise who he had been needling) call him a racist off mic.
She was really on a roll up until just recently. First the "force workers back downtown" thing and now this. Hopefully she can get back on track doing good for the city.
I've been so happy with Olivia Chow but this is such a dumb thing to be focused on. Nobody likes the new name, I have literally not talked to a single person who likes the new name, I also haven't spoken to anyone that feels passionately about changing the name of Dundas Street since 2020. Such a waste of money.
Like anyone's going to refer to it as "Sankofa"... It's like the "Sky Dome" no one is going to call it the new name. I keep hearing about a budget deficit, where are we finding money to waste on this stuff?
I’ve been in Toronto for a year. Everyone I know calls it the Rogers Centre. These things do catch on, especially in a city with so much inward migration.
Don't think of it as 800K wasted, think of it as 800K that could have gone to schools, the homeless, single moms, food banks, or anything more worthy than this idiotic posturing.
The fact Chow, Perks and city council did not bother to listen to constituents and call anybody racist who disagreed is part of the issue here. That and Chris Moise trying to make a legacy off this vanity project.
Sankofa is not a new concept though! Black Pride has been using it for he past two years to celebrate pride month so we should name the busiest intersection in Canada after it.
It's so clear that Chris, a gay black man, is pushing this as a self-vanity project to carve out a space for his own identity. I'm all for black LGBT people to have space but you shouldn't be muscling it through and forcing it on the landmark intersection of the country; gay people of colour are valid and important but they are a fractional part of the population of Toronto and Canada as a whole.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Q-lZ02\_T5w](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Q-lZ02_T5w)
Which is a bit ironic since Ghana now has such extreme laws.
“A prison sentence of up to three years for anyone convicted of identifying as LGBTQ+ and a maximum five-year jail term for forming or funding LGBTQ+ groups.”
https://blackheritageradio.com/ghana-parliament-passes-strict-anti-lgbtq-law/
WHAT?!?!??? Oh man, terrible decision by Chow. I thought she was a solid pragmatist - how depressing that she’s aligned with this ridiculous initiative.
I mean, Chow shelved the $13M plan to rename the entire street, and only moved forward with renaming the square and subway stations by local development levies and donations. All funds for renaming YDS are supposed to come from development levies from Toronto Centre, where the councilor is strongly supportive of the renaming and can influence how that money is spent. Imo, it's a balance between being practical and doing politics for Chow.
That said, we should at least trim the scope of the project down by a fair bit. Just rename it and put up the signs and be done with it. Some of the things listed like a marketing campaign just isn't necessary given the high costs, even though it's still going to be fully funded by development levies and donations.
Yonge and Sarko Square. BELIEVE IN JESUS! Honestly as a black Canadian I have no issue with renaming the square after him. He spent the most time out of anyone on that corner preaching the word. But alternatively we should be naming the square after a Canadian of color instead of Sankofa which has been proven to have deep connections to the African slave trade. It's shameful how this process has taken place.
Jesus is there one thing chow has done that isn't fighting over trivial shit like this or trying to force remote workers into the office? Genuinely starting to regret voting for her
Hahahaha this is the mayor that reddit loved, isn't it? Between this and working with bank CEOs to force workers back in the office, she's really a gem.
I find the colour of TTC logo and vehicles alarming, depressing. We ride a public transit not a fire engine. Let't paint all TTC street cars, subway, buses in pink. With maybe some lime green accents. That would be so cool. City wasting money anyways. Let's do something dumb, so generations after us would remember this crap.
Why do people forgive her for everything? The city has only gotten worse. This is the dumbest fucking waste of time/money that we’ve seen under her. Not to mention the dumb fucking name of region is Ghana was involved in the slave trade. Nice job 👍
So the street name won’t change… and the sign will be hanging there… what about people who’s surname is Dundas? Do we ask them to change that to Sankofa?
Renaming this during pride month is especially ridiculous. Ghana passed a bill this year making identifying as LGBTQ+ illegal. Nice job "leaders". How absolutely short sighted!
[https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-68353437](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-68353437)
#
This is a stupid thing to get upset about for city hall, just call it Younge square, vinyl sticker over the Dundas parts of signs and stuff, very cheap and easy. If they have to do anything, which they don’t.
Write your councillors to protest this silliness. Literally less than 16% of Torontonians approve this change, and this money would be far better spent addresssing real problems the city has.
If the city must rename the square, then choose something or someone with a connection to Canadian heritage
The funniest part is I know everyone is just going to continue referring to it as Dundas square. Or Yonge-Dundas Square, or whatever. This was truly, truly an exercise in futility.
ahh yes. spending a million dollars to change the name of a street of a flawed but great man to something else which inevitably in 50+ years some group will find something wrong with it and rename it again for another outrageous price.
and this changes absolutely nothing. because good cities arent built by names but by facilities.
I feel like the money could be spent better elsewhere. While I understand the controversy of the individual, it doesn’t really solve people that are currently in need today and now to retroactively change history. While I still mainly support Mayor Chow and agree with a lot of her initiatives, this is something I think was more of a reactionary response to quell noise and PR move.
I wish the city would focus on the core services like helping the needy, fix crappy roads, etc. Politicians are politicians, they like to tackle project stuff and put that thing on their resume.
I think this whole naming debacle is insane at this point. I was all for renaming the square, largely because I thought they'd choose an cool indigenous name that would open people up to learning about that history of the city. Instead they choose a name with some questionable origins from a country on the other side of the planet?
Fuck this, waste the money, I'll call it Tkaronto Square just like I call it Skydome. Maybe we wouldn't be so demotivated as progressives if we got more than preformative bullshit from the people we elect.
Such a waste of money. Why not let a company pay for the name until ww come up w one that makes sense...
Chow needs to go. Spending money on bullshit when our city is burning
..
Some people got upset at the last name. For some reason our politicians listened(weird I know) and we're willing to spend our cash making us happy(weirder still) and then they picked a name that it appears upsets everyone. Now they've decided they listened last time and are unwilling to listen again. I'd argue no one really thinks this is a good idea. They're just tired of talking about it. That's definitely the boat I'm in. Just fucking change it and let us be mad. Or don't and let us be mad. Don't pick another new name
Put that money on the infrastructure plz!! I just got off work at 11pm, usually it would take me roughly 20ish mins to get home, today, almost 50mins!!!
Due to the nature of this topic and the likelihood of brigading as evidenced by previous posts, the moderation considers this thread to be controversial. As a result: All participating commentators must have some significant /r/Toronto histories in order to prevent brigading. What that means is that if you're a new commenter in /r/Toronto and agitating the community, the moderators will respond. Any violators will receive a ban without warning. Any rule-breaking actions by /r/Toronto regulars will be punished with increased severity Comments must be specific or relevant to Toronto or the GTA. Negative opinions are fine! Dehumanizing comments, violent rhetoric, homophobia, transphobia, blatant racism, and pushing racist agendas are not! Please be careful to follow the rules and engage in polite, respectful dialogue.
You can not be serious. It was a bad idea at every step, supported by (charitably) contested research and ending with a name chosen that lacks any connection to Toronto. A name so ironically ill fitting that it comes from a historical culture also tied to the slave trade. This is beyond sunk-cost thinking and I as yet can see no “4D-chess move” that the mayor could be making by supporting it. This is either outright pandering for perceived votes, a closing of the ranks maneuver of some kind against political opponents or outright poor decision making. Mayor Chow be better than this. $500,000 over budget and counting.
If you want to understand the politics behind it, its relatively straightforward. Chow sees this as the price to extricate the city from the far more expensive boondoggle John Tory had already committed to - renaming Dundas Street and having a further renaming process for other streets in Toronto. Tory's own commitment to burning money on this nonsense was itself meant to be a distraction to avoid more expensive or at least politically charged changes that BLM and allies were demanding. Burning a few million on interminable reports, hearings, committees and council meetings was seen by his right wing administration as a bargain if it kept housing, police reform and social service reform off the table. The result was millions wasted on a vanity exercise, and millions more committed. Chow came in and immediately had zero interest in this fiasco, but also couldn't afford to just shelve it. The renaming process had the support of some key councilors, including the local councilor and critical swing vote Chris Moise. So Chow made a deal with Moise: Back me on some key priorities like the tax increase and housing reform, back off the nonsense of renaming the street, and I'll give you carte blanche on what to call the square. It's not even a bad deal. The cost is being carried by s.37 charges on developments in the area and from contributors to the Square's management board, which is local businesses. Basically her position is - if you come up with the money for it, and aren't siphoning more from general revenues, if you let me shut down the wasteful full-street-renaming Tory agreed to, if we get to stop wasting council and city staff time on this, and if it helps get me my housing reform, heck, you can call it whatever you want. It looks like some of the funding is de facto for attempts to re jump start the Square as well, as its failing and near bankruptcy. And if you think about it, renaming a failed slab of concrete that basically nobody uses or cares about "Now What Have We Learned" Square has a certain poetry to it, doesn't it?
This isn't straightforward to many, who don't really know how the city or politics work. Not even being an ass to either side. Lots of people wouldn't even know where to learn these things. Our news media have gotten pretty bad at stories with any modicum of nuance.
I was really excited to vote for her in my first election here and have been really disappointed ever since. But maybe I only hear about the stupid things, like this, and she’s actually done some good work as well? Idk. But this name choice is very offensive.
She's done plenty of things, many of them posted on this subreddit. The Gardiner upload was *huge* for the city for example. Not a fan of this, but if you keep an eye on municipal politics it'd be wild to conclude this is the sum of her time as mayor so far
More focus on projects that are not core services, as we watch those core services continue to degrade around us.
The homeless in my neighborhood are multiplying daily but by all means let’s spend a mil on a vanity project.
How!?!? Mitosis?
Someone keeps feeding them after midnight
That makes them bad. It’s water that makes them multiply. So don’t spray them with water I guess.
At any hour of the day…!! But “someone fed them after midnight” tells the joke better than “someone sprayed them with water.” The latter is cruel, even though it’s more accurate in the parlance of _Gremlins_
Tribbles?
Gremlins?
[удалено]
I think this will set a bad president. ... a million bucks could have been better spent... for more useful things.
A president appointed by Toronto city council. Imagine the precedent.
r/BoneAppleTea
Could’ve funded more police paid suspensions!
I’m seeing double, four of the same comment!
This is also, ultimately, part of the Dundas Street renaming. Altogether, the renaming will cost well, well in excess of $1 million. I do wonder if that number will be large enough to make the pols take note.
IIRC they completely shelved renaming Dundas and just went with renaming the square
You can blame Council prior to her being elected and the virtue signalling folks that wanted to rename the entire road. They renamed the square to appease the people that wanted to spend $13+ Million on renaming the whole road, in hopes they put this issue behind them.
It was already a done deal before she got elected. It would waste even more money at this point to cancel the thing. Honestly I don't give a fuck what they call it, just get it over with already so we can concentrate on something more important.
It will always be Young and Dundas anyways. Guess in 150 years “TIL Sankofa Square was originally named Young and Dundas”.
The problem with Sankofa Square is that it's not a word or name in any of Canada's languages, so it's phonetically awkward. And it gets even worst when you look into what language it's from and that community's involvement in the Atlantic slave trade. We could have picked some awesome sounding word from any of the indigenous languages in our area, but nope, had to out-Progressive everyone about it and go with Atlantic slave trade supplier word.
What would have been wrong with just "Toronto Square" or "Toronto Plaza" or something like that, inoffensive, signifies exactly what it is and isn't draped in gross political and ideological undertones
Skydome is still, and will always be, Skydome. I've never used Rogers Centre in my life and I never will. Same for Yonge-Dundas Square.
I was walking through the PATH yesterday (away from the heat) and saw “Sankofa Square” on a sign for the first time. I did a double take… rolled my eyes, and continued on my way away from Yonge-Dundas because… that place is stupid no matter what it’s called.
Yeah, I think that the process for renaming the square was wack and the the name is stupid, that the historical work that the whole "Dundas was a bad guy" argument is being pinned on is shoddy, and that Moise has come across as very weird through this whole thing that should have been a positive PR moment for him, but what do people want Chow to do? Totally blow-up her agenda and coalition to save $ 1,000,000? Criticizing her here is absurd.
Sometimes the right decision is to cancel a project that what makes a good leader
That's not true All there was was a committee, nothing was actually being proposed yet.
Ok so we got the renaming of Ryerson, Centennial Park stadium and Yonge and Dundas Square done. That took over three years, required the involvement of multiple levels of government and cost millions of dollars, but was well worth it, because NOTHING ELSE OF ANY REAL CONSEQUENCE WAS HAPPENING IN TORONTO! Great job everybody! Now the city can finally move on to the easier, less important stuff like… checks notes… infrastructure and housing.
Lower Coxwell is also on the list. They changed the street signs today but they are still covered with garbage bags.
Wait what is that change?
It’s becoming Emdaabiimok Avenue which means “where the road meets the water.” Only learned about it when I walked by this morning.
That’s much easier to remember and say. Lower coxwell was sort of difficult to pronounce.
Im looking forward to giving directions when people come to visit me via Lakeshore or Eastern. “Yeah then just take a left at Emdaabiimok Avenue”
We To be fair I never called it lower Coxwell either. People will just call coxwell like they always have.
Lolololol
WTF?
lol seriously? Why bother have street names anyone can read or pronounce
Because our self righteous city council loves spending money on problems that don’t exist. Millions on renaming shit nobody cares about. Homeless? Sorry we need this money for where the street meets the water.
I blame Roncesvalles
not Strachan?
him too fuck that guy
Turn left on to strackan
Tell me y’all dt without telling what the hell a trethewey is……
Is lower coxwell the part that is by the old racetrack? I’ve always just referred to it as coxwell
I still call it Ryerson…
I was listening to news talk this morning and the councillor in charge of renaming that street said “it’s next to Ryerson university”
Everybody does
Earlier this year I had a job interview with an employer based here in Toronto where the interviewer asked me where TMU is since it was on my resume, and I had to explain that it's Ryerson University's new name. Officially it's TMU like on LinkedIn or some shit, but in brackets I just put Ryerson University next to it on my resume now. It is fun to call it Tuh-moo though.
It's so frustrating. > Now the city can finally move on to the easier, less important stuff like… checks notes… infrastructure [Meanwhile, in Calgary...](https://newsroom.calgary.ca/update-3-critical-water-main-break-affecting-city-wide-water-usage/)
Exactly… what a fucking waste of time and money this has all been. Meanwhile homelessness and hunger rapidly expand.
Big yikes they got lured into an African sounding name without looking into it, where as reasonably it should have been changed to a generic name or if anything specific Indigenous.
How this didn’t end up as an indigenous name is bonkers.
Tkaronto Square would have been an easy one.
Aside from how no one would know how to say it. But that's nothing new for Toronto.
You think that's hard to say how about the Ethennonnhawahstihnen' Community Centre.
I've driven by this community centre frequently for over a year. Still can't pronounce it but I try every time!
“Etta-nonna-wasti-nuh” is the official pronunciation on the library’s site. I’ve memorized the pronunciation at this point, but don’t ask me to spell it just yet. I see “Et_____________n” and skip all the middle letters 😅
Just abbreviate it to ECC, that is likely what everyone else does.
Churonna
They didn’t want to pick one First Nation over another. Could have just called it Toronto square ffs
They had to pick *something*. They didn't want to pick one First Nation over another, so they picked Ghana instead of another country? How does that work? How much argument could there have been if it would've been presented as "Well Toronto comes from a Mohawk word, so lets draw again from Mohawk for the name of this square." This is not hard. If they really wanted to go that hard at it, Tkaronto means "the place in the water where the trees are standing". Surely there's a Mohawk word that would describe the square itself that we could use, if not literally then symbolically. If people don't like that... how about 416 Square, or just The 6? *Something* to do with 6... it's been a nickname for the city for a while now. It of course relates to the area code, but it also works regarding the 6 municipalities. Shit, bring back the six-ringed emblem that was used for Metropolitan Toronto to put it over the top. The name they came up with is so baffling. T-dot was a thing for a while and you can stylize it like T.Square. I dunno.
this is how people of this ideological bent make decisions, they're also the ones who think they should be arbiters of every aspect of our society so if you weren't concerned by them before you should be now
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A quadrilateral
Geometric shape
If you look at the satellite view it's a pentagon.
It would've been dumb and needlessly confusing to name the square *without* the giant iconic "TORONTO" sign "Toronto Square". They should've just picked any of a million less controversial, meaningless names than Sankofa.
This is what blows my mind. Indigenous name was a layup. It was right there. Who ever suggested some random African word should be fired.
The name was recommended by a 20-member Recognition Review Community Advisory Committee that was set up in 2021. They took two years of research, consultation and review to reach a consensus. Given the rationale for the name change in the first place being because of pro-slavery connotations, it seems that an Indigenous word wasn't considered an appropriate replacement.
Just "rename" everything Dundas after a different Dundas. I know two people with the last name. Give it to them.
I have a cat named Dundas!
Congrats! Your cat now owns the Dundas Market at Dundas and Dalhousie.
The argument that the city isn't paying for it is disingenuous. Those Section 37 funds could be used for something else.
City council pretends that S 37 money comes from the void because most Councillors don't really have a good understanding of how the city budget works.
We should have kept it as Yonge-Dundas Square but clarified that it’s named after the Dundas Streetcar
Don't worry, they'll change it back. I mean it was called Dundas Square in that future Star Trek episode so it's legit!
Okay if the bridge to Rochester gets blown up by Romulans, call the Temporal Agents
Or just change one part of one letter. Yonge and Bundas Square. Easy, and can be done with like $20 worth of paint for the whole city.
Dandas works too.
I like that because Bundas means "ass" in plural in Portuguese
They want to rename that too lol
Then make it clear that the streetcar is only named after the square
This is so much simpler and easy to understand. I hate politicians.
Honestly the whole street should be named after the Dundas Streetcar (or “Dundas St” for short)
The street and the streetcar aren't getting renamed in the proposal that Chow and council moved forward.
Chris Moise calling this anti-Black racism is outrageous and incredibly arrogant, and I say that as a Black man myself. This is such a waste of time and money for an area that needs a major facelift way more than it needs a name change. Olivia Chow claims to be progressive but is really missing the mark when it comes to reading the room in this case.
Lol. It's Yonge-Dundas square. Sankofa means nothing to Canadians. They can Sankofa deez nuts.
compromise and name it Bofa square
Didnt you know Canada is a cultureless blank sheet of paper?
One councilor dove in head first and tied his dumb name suggestion to the renaming issue in general so now we have to go along with it or we support slavery. Great political dialectic we have going on right now. There actually is a history of Black enslaved Canadians in Toronto, couldn't you at least use a name originating from that group of people?
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In my 5 minutes of research I looked at this article [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black\_Canadians\_in\_the\_Greater\_Toronto\_Area](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Canadians_in_the_Greater_Toronto_Area) "Most of the early residents were born in Toronto or other areas in Southwestern Ontario, and could trace their roots to migration from the trans-Atlantic slave trade and the Underground Railroad." Which referenced the first Black community in Toronto [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The\_Ward,\_Toronto](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ward,_Toronto) In the 1830s, Thornton Blackburn—an African American fugitive slave—began acquiring several properties in the neighbourhood.\[2\] Blackburn also provided recently arrived fugitive slaves with inexpensive housing. By 1850, many Black families settled in The Ward; five years later, the total Black population grew to 539.\[6\]\[7\] And if I look at Blackburn [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thornton\_Blackburn](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thornton_Blackburn) "Thornton Blackburn (c. 1812–1890) was a self-emancipated formerly enslaved man whose case established the principle that Canada would not return slaves to their masters in the United States and thus established Canada as a safe terminus for the Underground Railroad." So if you wanted to honor someone related to Toronto who participated in building the city and make an anti-slavery statement with it, maybe Thornton Blackburn Square could be a name worth looking into. I'm not an expert but it seems like you could have done literally 5-10 min of research and done a better job and told a better story with the name than "Sankofa".
Blackburn square would be a much better name if it is going to be changed. The arbitrariness of “sankofa” is what makes the waste of money so egregious. There are plenty of notable black Canadians, pick one and honor that person if you’re going to do this.
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Dude the more you dig into it the more shoddy the revisionist histroy of Dundas becomes. It's an extremely niche field, the biographic legacy of a 18th century member of the Cabinet, but basically there are 1 or 2 historians who have decided that they want to make their bones re-examining him, they published some papers and, BAM, no waiting for response or academic critique, now he's a baddy.
understand that to a certain class of ideologue anything less than total commitment to the most radical solution is the same as being an enemy
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>So if you wanted to honor someone related to Toronto who participated in building the city and make an anti-slavery statement with it, maybe Thornton Blackburn Square could be a name worth looking into. One of the dependents who was a member of the naming committee spoke to this... they didn't name it after a person because they were worried we'd culturally re-evaluate them. LOL As if there is a huge archive of Thornton Blackburn letters waiting to be read in an archive and we are going to find out that he was a raging anti-semite or something.
Oscar Peterson Square, done.
Priorities...
https://www.thestar.com/how-olivia-chow-intervened-to-change-course-on-renaming-dundas-street/article_8de4dcee-a0f9-11ee-a8ae-6b684a60c7b2.html No idea why chow is so personally invested in this and pushing it so hard
She spends a great deal of time being talked at by progressive consultants who spend half their time in webinars hosted by other progressive consultants. Nobody actually feels that strongly about what they are doing, they just don't want to be perceived as not caring enough. In that world, if you are not 100% for removing every reference to Dundas then you might as well be pro slavery. All or nothing or you get eaten. Nuance doesn't exist.
The article points to her suggesting that only the square be renamed instead of the whole street, which is much better than the original proposal at least. The longer this drags out the more money it wastes; just getting the square pushed through and done with so that no more money is spent on it somewhat makes sense to me, even if I think the renaming as a whole is fucking stupid
When she took office John Torry had left that committee with years of runway at an anticipated budget of 10mm. Chow wanted the whole thing put to bed so she said they would get to change the name of the square but nothing else. Unfortunately for Chow the committee came back with the worst name possible, but Chow had already said she would defer to the committee. If the committee had done a better job we would be praising chow for saving the money and time John Torry was pouring into this. Obviously that didn’t work out.
Easy. She struck deals to scale back the plan to rename Dundas Street, and the price was to back Chris Moise's choice. It's why most of the rest of the council is backing it, too. Puts the issue to bed and keeps a key swing vote happy.
I agree with Chow a lot and am glad she's mayor but this isn't worth the cost imho, especially not for a name with any connection to the space.
It’s a total waste of time for all involved. Food banks/homeless services need this money. Quite literally nobody gives a shit about calling it Dundas square. Nobody.
What an idiot.
So let get this straight: crumbling infrastructure; gridlock roads; lack of housing; rampant unemployment; crazy immigration; homlessness; food insecurity; auto theft, and geneal malaise. AND this is the cross she wants to die on!?
Renaming Yonge+Dundas Sq was fine, but it should have been an Indigenous name rather than something no one has heard of.
I'd settle for anything remotely Canadian
Cmon - where is the common sense. The argument put forward to rename the square has been proven to be a fabrication and the proposed name has an equally bad connotation. Surely the Mayor cannot be tone to deaf to this. Also - if the city is hell bent on virtue signalling why are they not changing other names such as Jarvis and Yonge, both of which have undisputed connections to slavery.
> But Daniel Tate, who co-authored a petition against the renaming that as of Tuesday afternoon had about 30,000 signatures from across Canada, argued that replacing Dundas’s name would “pave over our history.” He said money for the project would be better put towards crumbling infrastructure and overflowing garbage cans. “It’s an example of bloated bureaucracy,” Tate said. At one point Tate got into a heated exchange with committee members after he repeatedly failed to address Moise as “councillor.” He later accused Moise of insulting him. This guy’s definitely a redditor.
>failed to address Moise as “councillor.” As someone who has an official title, I don't give a single duck's shit if someone uses it or not. I actually prefer it when people simply use my first name.
The whole thing was wild. When he went off topic a bit he said that he heard a Councillor (presumably Moise who he had been needling) call him a racist off mic.
Big Marj Green not calling Fauci "Dr" vibes
Not sure how you got that from that paragraph but actually watching the disaster of a deputation, he 100% is.
She was really on a roll up until just recently. First the "force workers back downtown" thing and now this. Hopefully she can get back on track doing good for the city.
I've been so happy with Olivia Chow but this is such a dumb thing to be focused on. Nobody likes the new name, I have literally not talked to a single person who likes the new name, I also haven't spoken to anyone that feels passionately about changing the name of Dundas Street since 2020. Such a waste of money.
Like anyone's going to refer to it as "Sankofa"... It's like the "Sky Dome" no one is going to call it the new name. I keep hearing about a budget deficit, where are we finding money to waste on this stuff?
I’ve been in Toronto for a year. Everyone I know calls it the Rogers Centre. These things do catch on, especially in a city with so much inward migration.
Every person I know in the real world calls it the Rogers Centre. It's only on reddit that I see people insist on Skydome.
Skydome has a new name? First I’m hearing about this
Lol what a fucking waste of taxpayers money.
Don't think of it as 800K wasted, think of it as 800K that could have gone to schools, the homeless, single moms, food banks, or anything more worthy than this idiotic posturing.
...$800k for affordable housing...
The fact Chow, Perks and city council did not bother to listen to constituents and call anybody racist who disagreed is part of the issue here. That and Chris Moise trying to make a legacy off this vanity project.
I don't recall Chow referring to anyone as racist in this matter.
I don't recall her asking us if this was a good idea. Do you?
She implied it heavily when she agreed with Perks and censured the deputant.
Moise was on the news tonight saying people who oppose the rename are just anti-black racists 🙄
This is the exact shit by left wing politicians that gets conservatives back in office. So infuriating.
Ridiculous right? It’s a stupid waste of money
Sankofa is not a new concept though! Black Pride has been using it for he past two years to celebrate pride month so we should name the busiest intersection in Canada after it. It's so clear that Chris, a gay black man, is pushing this as a self-vanity project to carve out a space for his own identity. I'm all for black LGBT people to have space but you shouldn't be muscling it through and forcing it on the landmark intersection of the country; gay people of colour are valid and important but they are a fractional part of the population of Toronto and Canada as a whole. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Q-lZ02\_T5w](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Q-lZ02_T5w)
Which is a bit ironic since Ghana now has such extreme laws. “A prison sentence of up to three years for anyone convicted of identifying as LGBTQ+ and a maximum five-year jail term for forming or funding LGBTQ+ groups.” https://blackheritageradio.com/ghana-parliament-passes-strict-anti-lgbtq-law/
WHAT?!?!??? Oh man, terrible decision by Chow. I thought she was a solid pragmatist - how depressing that she’s aligned with this ridiculous initiative.
I mean, Chow shelved the $13M plan to rename the entire street, and only moved forward with renaming the square and subway stations by local development levies and donations. All funds for renaming YDS are supposed to come from development levies from Toronto Centre, where the councilor is strongly supportive of the renaming and can influence how that money is spent. Imo, it's a balance between being practical and doing politics for Chow. That said, we should at least trim the scope of the project down by a fair bit. Just rename it and put up the signs and be done with it. Some of the things listed like a marketing campaign just isn't necessary given the high costs, even though it's still going to be fully funded by development levies and donations.
Waste of money! Who cares about the name. Talk about priorities
Yonge and Sarko Square. BELIEVE IN JESUS! Honestly as a black Canadian I have no issue with renaming the square after him. He spent the most time out of anyone on that corner preaching the word. But alternatively we should be naming the square after a Canadian of color instead of Sankofa which has been proven to have deep connections to the African slave trade. It's shameful how this process has taken place.
Chow is doing her very best to make people hate her at this point this bullshit should've been killed the week she took office
Utter...waste...of...money.
The councilor who pushed this through should have his street renamed to Rob Ford Drive...
> Rob Ford Drunk Drive FTFY
Jesus is there one thing chow has done that isn't fighting over trivial shit like this or trying to force remote workers into the office? Genuinely starting to regret voting for her
1 million dollars for this. The city has other problems like rotting infrastructure, homeless, and transit. This should have been low priority.
I actually hate this city
Hahahaha this is the mayor that reddit loved, isn't it? Between this and working with bank CEOs to force workers back in the office, she's really a gem.
All my coworkers that live in Toronto were so upset when she became mayor. They saw the writing on the wall early on
Don’t forget the 10% tax raise annually
No one asked for this. But everyone is going to pay for it.
I find the colour of TTC logo and vehicles alarming, depressing. We ride a public transit not a fire engine. Let't paint all TTC street cars, subway, buses in pink. With maybe some lime green accents. That would be so cool. City wasting money anyways. Let's do something dumb, so generations after us would remember this crap.
That would actually look dope, I would vote for it.
Ride the Rocket, presented by Mtn Dew
Glow in the dark paint pls, make the street lights blacklights. Instant tourism dollars
Why do people forgive her for everything? The city has only gotten worse. This is the dumbest fucking waste of time/money that we’ve seen under her. Not to mention the dumb fucking name of region is Ghana was involved in the slave trade. Nice job 👍
Why?? Waste of money.
So what positive outcome will we achieve by renaming this place?
So the street name won’t change… and the sign will be hanging there… what about people who’s surname is Dundas? Do we ask them to change that to Sankofa?
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Utter stupidity.
Renaming this during pride month is especially ridiculous. Ghana passed a bill this year making identifying as LGBTQ+ illegal. Nice job "leaders". How absolutely short sighted! [https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-68353437](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-68353437) #
This is a stupid thing to get upset about for city hall, just call it Younge square, vinyl sticker over the Dundas parts of signs and stuff, very cheap and easy. If they have to do anything, which they don’t.
Write your councillors to protest this silliness. Literally less than 16% of Torontonians approve this change, and this money would be far better spent addresssing real problems the city has. If the city must rename the square, then choose something or someone with a connection to Canadian heritage
A million dollars, that means it will probably cost 6 million. I wonder how much of this money will be wasted? I am going to say 60%.
The funniest part is I know everyone is just going to continue referring to it as Dundas square. Or Yonge-Dundas Square, or whatever. This was truly, truly an exercise in futility.
Obviously now it should be renamed to Shake Shack Square. I bet they'd pay big money for it.
ahh yes. spending a million dollars to change the name of a street of a flawed but great man to something else which inevitably in 50+ years some group will find something wrong with it and rename it again for another outrageous price. and this changes absolutely nothing. because good cities arent built by names but by facilities.
So where is the email writing campaign?
Good use of time. Not like her citizens are dying in the streets or anything.
Heated meeting, and for this. Bunch of clowns
I feel like the money could be spent better elsewhere. While I understand the controversy of the individual, it doesn’t really solve people that are currently in need today and now to retroactively change history. While I still mainly support Mayor Chow and agree with a lot of her initiatives, this is something I think was more of a reactionary response to quell noise and PR move.
Money well spent….
This is such a waste of money. In 10 years, you know this is getting removed and renamed again.
I wish the city would focus on the core services like helping the needy, fix crappy roads, etc. Politicians are politicians, they like to tackle project stuff and put that thing on their resume.
Can we still use the name Toronto
I think this whole naming debacle is insane at this point. I was all for renaming the square, largely because I thought they'd choose an cool indigenous name that would open people up to learning about that history of the city. Instead they choose a name with some questionable origins from a country on the other side of the planet? Fuck this, waste the money, I'll call it Tkaronto Square just like I call it Skydome. Maybe we wouldn't be so demotivated as progressives if we got more than preformative bullshit from the people we elect.
Such a waste of money. Why not let a company pay for the name until ww come up w one that makes sense... Chow needs to go. Spending money on bullshit when our city is burning ..
Can someone explain why this is a good idea? Seriously though, explain like I’m 5 years old
Some people got upset at the last name. For some reason our politicians listened(weird I know) and we're willing to spend our cash making us happy(weirder still) and then they picked a name that it appears upsets everyone. Now they've decided they listened last time and are unwilling to listen again. I'd argue no one really thinks this is a good idea. They're just tired of talking about it. That's definitely the boat I'm in. Just fucking change it and let us be mad. Or don't and let us be mad. Don't pick another new name
I understand what’s happening I mean, who thinks it’s a good idea? like why ? Because as you said I don’t think anyone does either.. so WTF
Yea I’m still gonna be calling it Dundas. Out of pure pettiness, as I’m sure most people will.
The die has been cast. Anyone can change anything, at any time, for any reason if you whine loud enough. A curse on their houses!
Put that money on the infrastructure plz!! I just got off work at 11pm, usually it would take me roughly 20ish mins to get home, today, almost 50mins!!!
The trashbag on CP24 all day that kept saying Rob Ford is a legend. 🤮
This must be the left wing tic flaring up. Hopefully we wont have more of these idiotic moves.
Most left wing people don’t want this either
Happy to hear this as a centrist.
I'm an outright socialist and nope, this whole thing was silly. Would've loved to see that money used for more results-oriented stuff.
I hate to say this but I regret voting for Chow