Indigenous Relations Committee Proposes New Names for Winnipeg Streets Originally Named After Catholic Priest

Winnipeg's historic intersection of Portage and Main on Oct. 24, 2018. (John Woods/The Canadian Press)

Three streets in Winnipeg could soon be renamed based on recommendations by the city’s Indigenous Relations Division (IRD).

IRD has recommended to the City of Winnipeg’s Executive Policy Committee that new names be considered for Bishop Grandin Boulevard, Bishop Grandin Trail, and Grandin Street, named after a Catholic priest in the 1800s who adopted two indigenous orphans and advocated for a native priesthood.

Bishop Grandin Boulevard is proposed to be Abinojii Mikanah, Bishop Grandin Trail would become Awasisak Mēskanow, and Grandin Street would be renamed Taapweewin Way, according to a March 6 news release issued by the City of Winnipeg.

The committee said IRD was directed to engage in consultations with indigenous people to find names that honour “Indigenous experience, culture, and history.”

“To develop a proposed name change, IRD convened an Indigenous Knowledge Naming Circle comprised of Indigenous Elders, residential school survivors, knowledge keepers, and youth to discuss and propose new names,” said the news release.

Frank Beaulieu, an elder with Bear Clan of Treaty One Nation, said, “It was at the time of the discovery of the 215 children. As we sat together as Knowledge Keepers at the workshop, when they asked my spirit, I thought of, and in clarity, that it would be named Abinojii Mikanah (Children’s Roadway).”

Another elder, Betty Ros, of Pimicikamak Cree Nation, Treaty Five Nation, said she “offered sacred tobacco and prayers to the creator” in Cree, and was guided to the proposed name change.

“Everything came full circle, hence these new proposed Indigenous names,” she said.

According to Winnipeg, “The legacy of Bishop Vital Grandin has been reconsidered in recent years following the release of the Final Report on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) of Canada.”

The news release said that “the report included a detailed history of the residential school system in Canada and identified Bishop Vital Grandin as leading the campaign for residential schools.”

The city said it adopted the “Welcoming Winnipeg” policy in January 2020 “to guide the City to resolve the absence of Indigenous perspectives in Winnipeg’s historical markers and place names,” but noted the recommendations for street names were governed under a bylaw, and were developed separately from the welcome policy.

A July 19, 1978, document, “Report of the committee on the Environment"—one of many historic documents available through the Winnipeg Decision Making Information System—noted then that naming the corridor Bishop Grandin Boulevard “appears to be most appropriate from a historical point of view.”

“Bishop Vital Justin Grandin, an assistant to Bishop Tache, was associated with the development of the Colonies in the St. Vital and Fort Garry areas in the mid 1880s,” said the document.

It stated that the demolished Grandin School was named “in recognition of Bishop Grandin whose 150th Birthday Anniversary will occur on Feb. 8, 1979.”

In a March 21 article, Brian Giesbrecht, a retired judge and senior fellow with the Frontier Centre for Public Policy, said, “Grandin always believed that indigenous parents should decide whether or not to send their child to a residential school. During Grandin’s time, attendance at residential schools was completely up to the indigenous parents. Compulsory school attendance was not introduced until long after his death.”

“Reconciliation is a worthy goal. But it won’t be achieved by rewriting history,” said Giesbrecht.