Former Mayors Oppose Renaming Toronto’s Dundas Street

A Dundas Street West sign is pictured in Toronto on June 10, 2020. The Canadian Press/Giordano Ciampini

Three former Toronto mayors have written a letter asking the City of Toronto to reconsider renaming Dundas Street, arguing that evidence suggests Henry Dundas, the historical namesake of the street, was a committed abolitionist of slavery during his life.

Mr. Dundas (1742–1811) was a Scottish lawyer and British politician, and the 23-kilometre stretch of street in Toronto is named after him.

Former mayors David Crombie, who served from 1972 to 1978, John Sewell, who served from 1978 to 1980, and Art Eggleton, who served from 1980 to 1991, addressed the letter to Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow and city councillors, urging them to abandon their plan to change the street name.

The letter was shared on Aug. 16 on X, formerly known as Twitter, by Jennifer Dundas, a lawyer and former CBC reporter who is loosely related to the late Mr. Dundas through her great-great-grandfather. In a lengthy post on Aug. 15, Ms. Dundas said the decision to rename Dundas Street is “historically illiterate” given that Mr. Dundas led the legal team to free an escaped slave, and convinced Scotland’s highest court to declare that slavery was illegal.

["Henry Dundas] proposed an achievable plan to end slavery and the slave trade in British colonies,” she wrote, and “appointed an abolitionist to be Upper Canada’s first lieutenant-governor, resulting in passage of the 1st anti-slavery/anti-slave-trade legislation anywhere in the British Empire.”

“Three former mayors asking the City to reconsider the decision to rename Dundas Street is one of the most significant political developments regarding this issue in the last three years,” said Ms. Dundas.

‘A Committed Abolitionist’

In the letter, the three retired mayors said they questioned the interpretation of the research leading to the decision to rename Dundas Street, stating that historical evidence shows Mr. Dundas was against slavery.

The mayors said the historical figure’s “first achievement as an abolitionist was in 1778, when, as a lawyer, he took a appeal case in Scotland, of an enslaved person Joseph Knight, brought to Scotland from Jamaica by his owner.”

They also said Mr. Dundas tried as a British MP to pass an anti-slavery motion, albeit with a gradual plan, and his appointment of an abolitionist to be the first lieutenant-governor of Upper Canada, now Ontario, “also promoted the anti-slavery cause.”

The mayors noted Mr. Dundas faced a great deal of opposition because the House of Assembly then contained slave owners.

“It appears that Henry Dundas for whom the street is named, was a committed abolitionist who, when facing strong opposition and certain defeat, rather than give up his quest, advocated for interim measures that would ultimately lead to that result. It seems he was doing the best he could under challenging circumstances at that time in history,” the letter says.

“We don’t see a valid reason to remove his name from the street. From a practical perspective, and given the City’s financial circumstance, there are more appropriate ways to spend $8.6 Million.”

Mayor Olivia Chow’s office did not respond to Epoch Times’ requests for comment by press time, but according to Ms. Dundas, Ms. Chow said on Aug. 16 that while she “stands behind Council’s original motion to rename Dundas Street,” she is “also eager to hear from concerned citizens and to encourage public involvement in a matter than resonates throughout the city and beyond.”

Ms. Dundas said city council relied on staff “who were too eager to embrace the accusations against Henry Dundas. Their information on the purchase of slaves was incorrect. That’s on them, not councillors.”

She said Mr. Dundas tried to propose compromises to get buy-in from slave owners and advocated for a gradual abolition of slavery. “His goal was clear. He wanted the slave trade to end by 1800,” she said.

Co-chair of the Toronto city council advisory committee Melanie Newton, a history professor at the University of Toronto, said in a CBC interview that Mr. Dundas only advocated for “gradual abolition” of slavery, but wanted to “sustain slavery without slave trading in the long run.”

Impact on Small Businesses

Kevin Vuong, an independent MP for Spadina-Fort York and a naval reserve officer in the Canadian Armed Forces, said in a Toronto Sun editorial that changing the name of Dundas Street would force the small businesses on the street to endure expense and stress, compelling them to have to change signs, menus, stationary, business cards, and the like. He said the name change would hurt businesses already struggling to recover from COVID.

“It is thanks to Henry Dundas that today Ontario has the proud legacy of being the first jurisdiction in the then British Empire to have passed anti-slavery and anti-slave trade legislation,” said Mr. Vuong, citing Ms. Dundas’s research.

He called on Mayor Chow to “defend a truly progressive leader who helped to end slavery.”

“Instead of forgetting and erasing Henry Dundas’ legacy, let us learn from it, understand his anti-slavery leadership, and take inspiration from it as our city and country navigates the turbulent waters of our era,” said Mr. Vuong.

Ontario’s finance minister Peter Bethlenfalvy has also questioned the decision to rename Dundas Street at an estimated cost of $8.6 million while the city has a financial budget shortfall estimated at $1.5 billion.

“We’ve been there for Toronto, we’ve put in billions of dollars to support Toronto ... and I would just ask the mayor to look at some things like renaming Dundas Street,” said the minister.

“Is that the priority that she wants to fund?”

The Canadian Press contributed to this report.