A city review reveals several Toronto streets and assets have a racist past

680's Cam Dorrett with the details.

By Laura Carney

What started off as a petition calling for Dundas street to be renamed – the city review into street names is revealing there are a number of place name and city assets that also systematically embed racism and discrimination.

Wayne Reeves is the Chief Curator of Museums and Heritage Services with the city says they’re working through a very thoughtful process on how to address thousands of place names.

“We realized other streets such as Jarvis Street, Russell Hill Drive and Baby Point are other places that are problematic so we’ll be working through a very thoughtful process”

The city has over 6-thousand named streets and 15-hundred named parks.

This review was launched in response to a petition calling for Dundas to be renamed because British politician Henry Dundas actively participated in obstructing the abolition of slavery in the 1700’s.

A report will go before the mayor’s executive committee next month with a recommendation that could range from taking no action to starting a process to rename Dundas street, plus the namesake public square, subway station and transit lines, as well as other local landmarks.

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