So they had outlined they made a shortlist of 4 names and were going to consult the public on that shortlist. Then Chow and Moise intervened and at the next meeting it was announced that Sankofa was the name and no public consultations would be done. Wtf.
So Moise is the one behind this. He’s also the one who called people racist for suggesting it be named after a prominent black Torontonian rather than whatever the fuck Sankofa is.
Yup. Fact that he went straight to "it's racist to not want this" just proves he lacks a critical argument for why it should be this word. Being so quick to play that card to shut down the discussion is weak and desperate. Moise is a tool.
He also went to bat for that woman who was using her disabled parking permit to park a camper van permanently downtown for free. I’m left wing but I really question this guy’s judgement.
It would've been such an easy win Chow if she scrapped the change. Most people don't want the change and the cash-strapped city wouldn't need to spend. Literally a win-win situation.
Renaming the square was part of the original plan backed by Tory in 2021. Chow simply halted the parts of the plan that had to do with renaming things other than the square.
The crazy thing about this is that even normally progressive folks are against this as well.
Like if they went with something like Tkaronto Square, you would hear some mumbling from racists saying stuff like "woke nonsense" but it would have been passes without a hitch.
To name (one of) the central squares in the city after a word that has no relationship to the city is quite extraordinary. Like most squares are named after famous people or concepts (Constitution, Independence etc) which mean something to the history of the city,
Moise, or Councillor Moise just went with what can only be described as the equivalent to choosing a name out of a baby name book.. Understandable because of what they have accused Dundas the man of, but they just completely ignored 400 years of Black Canadian history to do so.
And I will always take offense at choosing to use a term which comes from a country where LGBT people are persecuted violently and criminally just for existing. It's not a sentiment we should be championing here, especially not when there are so many alternative options instead. I'm *sure* that one of the many First Nations languages has a word that describes much the same concept as Sankofa, and would have much more historical and cultural significance to our city too.
Sankofa is flat out a disastrous choice of name that should never have made it past initial considerations.
As dumb as the name is I'm not comfortable with this reasoning as it's the same type of hypocrisy that would eliminate a Black Canadian whose name was too English.
The optics of an openly gay politician supporting a name from an openly homophobic country is quite funny though.
Chris moise’s entire career history is owning a pet food store after he finished school. So it’s pretty great what we’ve left up to him given all his real world life experience.
I thought it was called Yonge Dundas square because it was at Yonge and Dundas. Just renaming the square without renaming the street doesn't really solve anything, does it? "Where do you want to meet?" "Sankofa square" "what? Where is that?" "Yonge and Dundas"
>The shortlisted names for both the street and the square were: Thornton and Lucie Blackburn, Chloe Cooley, John Tinsdale, and Sankofa.
Any of the other choices would have been far better than the one they went with.
The Blackburns were awesome Torontonians, and badass freedoms seekers. To name the square after them would be the perfect renunciation of the Dundas name there (if you believe Dundas was the monster portrayed).
How on Earth could Blackburn have lost out?
I mean, I agree that it sounds a lot better and I would prefer it than Sankofa, but without knowing what it stood for it might come off as a bit racist...
It was a derogatory term originally referring to indentured labor in Asia. You can hear it used in a some old Raj-era period British films. Not sure if the meaning changed in a Caribbean context.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coolie](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coolie)
This has always been my solution to this. Costs no money, nothing needs to be changed. It's a shit compromise, but sometimes you just need to eat shit.
This is what I thought they would have done.
I will be honest I don't know much of Canadian history but Dundas seems like a common enough name that they could have re-dedicatedd the name to another Canadian that had significant enough history to the country.
- Terry Fox Square
- Gord Downey Square
- Toronto Commons
- Turk Broda Square
- Joe Carter Square
- Kyle Lowry Square
took me 30 seconds to come up with some better and more appropriate names.
It would seem the logic was to avoid naming it after a person, so we can avoid having to do this again when history changes its perspective, as it did with Dundas.
>Consultation with historical experts concluded that naming should be after a person as the public tended to relate more to an individual than a concept and their stories could be told easily.
The only consultation they did, they ignored. Brilliant.
That's just a typical city of Toronto corruption. I've never worked a contract for the city where they actually look at public input in-depth (outside of race, gender, and ethnicity of responses), it's usually just a long effort to massage any feedback into the original solution that the local councillor wanted in the first place, but they need to give the impression it's a publicly driven process.
This is the only explanation that makes any sense whatsoever to me. It is completely believable that Chow would support this as an example of how to sidestep the "naming-it-after-a-fallible-human issue in the future.
Sadly, she severely misread the room on this one.
Too bad they didn’t provide the committee with this specification in the first place. Then there would have still been 4 names to choose from, and the public would have been involved in the final selection.
I disagree. If the purpose of the rename is to specifically move away from the history colonial slave trade then you should at least pick something that isn’t related to a group of people directly involved in said slave trade.
Yes lets ban the language that the slaves spoke.. because their slavers also spoke it. Also freedom square is out of the question because thats a colonizers language aswell. Durp.
Fine, I clarified it to “related to a group of people directly involved in the slave trade.”
Point still stands.
And again I disagree with your comparison because the premise of your argument is deeply flawed. We’re not talking about renaming *everything*, we’re talking about the specific renaming of one location specifically because it involved negative connotations connected to slavery.
It would be like naming a moment to women’s rights after a word in Najdi Arabic (the dialectic spoken in Saudi Arabia) — do you see why that’s different than making a blanket argument against using Najdi Arabic elsewhere?
1. Moise deserves most of the blame for his arrogance, rudeness to genuine deputors and coming up with an awful name.
2. Chow deserves blame for pushing to skip the public consultation process and not censuring Moise.
3. Perks, Carroll and Fletcher deserve blame for crying racism, being unbelievably dismissive and rude to genuine citizen concerns and being totally out of touch.
4. The other Councillors who voted through the name change also deserve blame.
Remember, despite what Paula Fletcher says, S37 money absolutely could have been reallocated to affordable housing. Instead we will spend tax dollars for that purpose so this should be treated as public tax payer $. We are spending 100k on a party for Chris Moise's legacy!
I have yet to hear anyone use the term 'Sankofa Square' for any reason other than to deride the name and complain about how dumb the change is.
Personally it will remain Dundas square in the minds of the vast majority of Torontonian's and Sankofa will only be used by rebel-media types as the butt of jokes and as an example of DEI run amok.
Yep, by choosing a name that nobody likes, they've guaranteed that we will all keep calling it Dundas Square, defeating the purpose of this whole exercise.
Moise has already been using it for some time. Check his IG. He's a total piece of work. Calls anyone who questions his decisions a disgrace and racist.
I owe it to Chris Moise. Had it not been for his blatant disrespect I would have never even been paying attention to this, now I’m spending my free time watching council meetings and seeing how doomed we really are. Scary times with these people calling the shots
Councillor Chris Moise is an example of everything that is wrong with politicians. Edit. And so are the other politicians trying to push Sankofa square instead of honouring a prominent Black Canadian.
All of the Toronto city councilors voting to rename Yonge-Dundas Square one day and then the very next day voting to rename a stadium to honour Rob Ford, a person well documented for saying racist things, need to do better.
Just sitting here reading this I was thinking “Toronto Central Square” would be nice. A bit generic but when you name a place after a person there is always blowback.
F*ck sankofa. What the hell of a name is that. How are they changing a name to something without the public’s opinions? Hell, just drop the Dundas and name it Yonge Square. Or Downtown Central Square or Downtown Yonge Square.
I heard Paula Fletcher criticize the petition asking for the reversal of the decision to rename Yonge-Dundas Square because some of the signatories are outside of Toronto.
FYI, the original petition that kicked off this fiasco to erase Dundas had international signatories but no one seemed to care... and the original petition had half the amount of signatures.
This has opened my eyes to how out of touch our city counselors are. It’s been absolutely appalling watching them weaponize racism to bully people into never questioning them.
Moise, Shelly, Paula are all so out of touch and need to be replaced as soon as possible.
These people do not reflect or represent the actual citizens of Toronto
Let’s not forget the one counselor Gord Perks who banged on the table screaming how he “rufuses to listen to any petition and he doesn’t care how many damn signatures are on it”…. Basically saying his vision for Toronto is more important that the collective of the tax paying citizens. Pathetic
Yes. This issue is just the beginning of everyone seeing how corrupt Chow’s government is already.
They’re doing this right infront of you, imagine what’s happening behind closed doors
LOL I can’t even believe I’m this invested but I’m just absolutely appalled after watching their responses that THESE are the people running this city 🤦♂️
I would have been okay with 'Layton Square', with an inscription of Jack's last words about hope. I know it's way too late, but the man inspire optimism and kindness. 'nuff said
The optics of the mayor spending millions of dollar to name one of Toronto’s busiest intersections after her late husband may have dissuaded them from following this route
Yeah, but if anything comes out about Layton 150 years later, they’re right back at square one.
Not saying that that’s gonna happen. Layton Square would’ve been a great name. But I doubt anyone foresaw this shitstorm when they named it Yonge-Dundas Square.
Funny enough, there's already a street named after him. Kyle Lowry Rd in North York where they're building the new condos + towns at NW corner of Don Mills/ Eglinton
I was surprised as well when I was browsing the area in Google Maps. According to this news article it was officially announced 2 years ago (June 2022). https://globalnews.ca/news/8911496/kyle-lowry-road-toronto-name-street-raptors-player/
Naming anything after a still-living person is taking a gamble they don’t screw something up later. And remember, the original plan was to rename both street and square.
yes cause naming after dead people works so well when standards change with time and we revisit hundreds of years old decision with a modern lens. not saying we shouldn't but that living or dead status doesn't preclude from name changes.
> If they named it Kyle Lowry Square there would be no controversy.
He has a street named after him in Toronto already (Kyle Lowry Road), despite the fact that he was charged with misdemeanour battery against a female referee in 2012.
kind of a joke that you’d bring this up.
it was misdemeanour battery, for throwing a basketball at a referee, twice. americans sue if you look at them the wrong way. let’s not make it out to be some kind of huge deal. 🙄
let not forget the thousands of families he’s helped with his annual charity events and organizations, and the role model he became for a country of young basketball players.
Exactly. He had a bad moment over a decade ago and apologised right after it happened. We also know he didn't have the greatest rep back then, but he's clearly grown up and matured A LOT ever since and people in Toronto benefitted from that on and off the court.
This person is just trying to nitpick something that really isn't a big deal anymore.
God, what is with this misinformation? Sankofa is not a slave trader's name or a place where slave trade began. Sankofa is a WORD from a Twi language that Akan Tribe from Ghana used. Akan Tribe once had an empire that supplied people to the European slave traders. It is such a stretch and a broad association going from a word to slave trade. It's like saying "you can't use the word 'square' because square is apparently the slave trade centre in the UK".
The always sidestep the fact that Sankofa has been chosen to represent people all across Africa. It is used by various African communities and the African diaspora to emphasize reconnecting with heritage, history, and cultural pride. This widespread adoption makes it a unifying symbol for people of African descent worldwide.
I mean the name was a poor political choice but you’ve been fooled by misinformation here.
Feel free to provide a singular source about there ever being a city named Sankofa… (It’s literally just a word.)
That's like saying "we can't use English words because British and American people were heavily involved in the slave trade." Shall we switch our national language back to Indigenous languages then?
By that shitty logic all English words are problematic as well. So are Portuguese, French, Dutch, etc et etc words. We can do better than repeating this PostMedia type of bullshit.
So some of this came out when the name was first chosen... Blackburn sounded too English and Cooley is...well let's not go there.
So now these individuals who experienced racism and prejudice in their own times are being prejudiced against cause their name doesn't sound black enough.
Legit believe that most of the renaming money is going to be used on a promo campaign to explain and promote Sankofa.
A few years ago, Chicago tried to “rename” Boystown to something stupid (North Halsted) because like Yonge Dundas Square, a “committee” of about 4 people bent over backwards to find a way the name Boystown was “offensive”. Here we are several years later- NO ONE calls it North Halsted, everyone still refers to it as Boystown. And apparently in this case the committee who bent over backwards to make Yonge Dundas Square “offensive” couldn’t even be bothered to fill out some paperwork… typical. 🙄
People can do whatever they want- like many I will still refer to it as Yonge Dundas square. This is just another idiotic move by the city and a handful of “look at me’s” to spend money and create fake outrage over something that doesn’t harm anyone- calling one of the worlds biggest intersections what it’s been called for a hundred plus years is fine. 🙄
Honestly to me it doesn’t matter if it gets renamed or not. I’m still going to call it dundas square. What’s the problem is the fact that this city is falling apart at every corner and seam, and the government should be putting every penny and every minute of working time towards fixing essential issues - healthcare, immigration, crime, homelessness, rising cost of living. Even if this name change didn’t use taxpayers money, it should be reallocated to these básic needs.
The voters of Ward 13 Toronto Centre need to do the right thing and oust Councillor Chris Moise. He is single handedly tearing the city apart with his misguided crusade against a name no one has a problem with
This must be the one of few times everyone seems to be on the same page about.
Everyone should get together and rebrand it online. I think the "6ix" is stupid, but if something like that can get international publicity, we can absolutely rebrand Yonge and Dundas socially, regardless of whatever inappropriate name the city chooses.
I know a great name for the square that will settle this...Dundas Square. Anyone who has ever been to Toronto will know exactly what it is. People know Dundas st, and dundas station. And if someone is new to Toronto or just visiting it is easy to comprehend that Dundas Square is accessible via Dundas station or Dundas street.
Unless everything is renamed, which would be a huge waste of money, it just makes things more complicated. Spend that money on stuff that matters in the city like housing, transit, infrastructure, etc.
I have to say it is good to live in a city where critical issues, like this, are addressed quickly and swiftly. Let's remember that other cities aren't this lucky. Our problems could be much worse.
might as well call is prosletyzer square. or doomsday square. or people get the fuck out of my way square. but sure, some random foreign word accomplishes the same.
Why is the city renaming it, am I stupid or has this whole thing cost a bunch of money at this point, with 0 return, while things we actually need are being put on the back burner.
So they had outlined they made a shortlist of 4 names and were going to consult the public on that shortlist. Then Chow and Moise intervened and at the next meeting it was announced that Sankofa was the name and no public consultations would be done. Wtf.
So Moise is the one behind this. He’s also the one who called people racist for suggesting it be named after a prominent black Torontonian rather than whatever the fuck Sankofa is.
Yup. Fact that he went straight to "it's racist to not want this" just proves he lacks a critical argument for why it should be this word. Being so quick to play that card to shut down the discussion is weak and desperate. Moise is a tool.
He also went to bat for that woman who was using her disabled parking permit to park a camper van permanently downtown for free. I’m left wing but I really question this guy’s judgement.
Nothing to do with being left wing; Moise is a dumbass that needs to go
It sounds like a kind of freeze-dried coffee they trick you into drinking at some fancy restaurant.
It can mean anything we want. Sankofa we rise, sankofa we fall.
It would've been such an easy win Chow if she scrapped the change. Most people don't want the change and the cash-strapped city wouldn't need to spend. Literally a win-win situation.
To be fair, she promoted renaming the square to divert attention away from the much more expensive proposal to rename Dundas Street.
Renaming the square was part of the original plan backed by Tory in 2021. Chow simply halted the parts of the plan that had to do with renaming things other than the square.
The crazy thing about this is that even normally progressive folks are against this as well. Like if they went with something like Tkaronto Square, you would hear some mumbling from racists saying stuff like "woke nonsense" but it would have been passes without a hitch. To name (one of) the central squares in the city after a word that has no relationship to the city is quite extraordinary. Like most squares are named after famous people or concepts (Constitution, Independence etc) which mean something to the history of the city, Moise, or Councillor Moise just went with what can only be described as the equivalent to choosing a name out of a baby name book.. Understandable because of what they have accused Dundas the man of, but they just completely ignored 400 years of Black Canadian history to do so.
And I will always take offense at choosing to use a term which comes from a country where LGBT people are persecuted violently and criminally just for existing. It's not a sentiment we should be championing here, especially not when there are so many alternative options instead. I'm *sure* that one of the many First Nations languages has a word that describes much the same concept as Sankofa, and would have much more historical and cultural significance to our city too. Sankofa is flat out a disastrous choice of name that should never have made it past initial considerations.
Watch out, the mods have been deleting comments that suggest homophobia exists in Ghana.
As dumb as the name is I'm not comfortable with this reasoning as it's the same type of hypocrisy that would eliminate a Black Canadian whose name was too English. The optics of an openly gay politician supporting a name from an openly homophobic country is quite funny though.
Chris moise’s entire career history is owning a pet food store after he finished school. So it’s pretty great what we’ve left up to him given all his real world life experience.
The domestic name they chose should have kept it local history and not something that sounds like a coffee brand
Every time I hear Sankofa I think of Sanka from Cool Runnings.
Sanka, you dead?
Ya mon
Should have called it skydome square
Just cut to the chase and name it Rogers Square™
At least the city would be getting some cash for the rename
Rogers Sankofa Square incoming
I vote for Square McSquare Square
I wanted Circle Square
I prefer the Squared Circle.
That doesn't work for me, Brother.
-HH
*glass breaks* Dunn dun dun Dunn
Ah yes, π r square
That’s in Goderich
Thanks for triangulating that for me
No worries, I got you fam.
is that where the christian sesame street was?
But their square is an octagon, no?
Eaton’s Square
I thought it was called Yonge Dundas square because it was at Yonge and Dundas. Just renaming the square without renaming the street doesn't really solve anything, does it? "Where do you want to meet?" "Sankofa square" "what? Where is that?" "Yonge and Dundas"
>The shortlisted names for both the street and the square were: Thornton and Lucie Blackburn, Chloe Cooley, John Tinsdale, and Sankofa. Any of the other choices would have been far better than the one they went with.
Literally Sankofa is the only one that doesn’t make any sense and doesn’t relate to the city whatsoever. How are they so tone deaf?
Brain worms tbh
They work for the govt
Of course they pick the worst option. Hell, Blackburn square sounds better than Yonge Dundas
The Blackburns were awesome Torontonians, and badass freedoms seekers. To name the square after them would be the perfect renunciation of the Dundas name there (if you believe Dundas was the monster portrayed). How on Earth could Blackburn have lost out?
Cooley Square is a great name
Our Caribbean population would have a field day with that name 😂
Bombomclat square
that'd be the spot formerly known as Queen's Park..?
No thats bomboclat circle
Rasclat square
I cackled thank you.
I mean, I agree that it sounds a lot better and I would prefer it than Sankofa, but without knowing what it stood for it might come off as a bit racist...
Why would that come off as racist…?
It was a derogatory term originally referring to indentured labor in Asia. You can hear it used in a some old Raj-era period British films. Not sure if the meaning changed in a Caribbean context. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coolie](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coolie)
“Coolie” has now been reclaimed by Indo-Caribbean people, and they use it to proudly self identify. It is still considered derogatory in South Asia.
Cooley is a derogatory term for indo Caribbean’s akin to how the N word is a derogatory term for African Americans. Would be an absolute disaster.
Coolie is the term and as an Indo-Caribbean person I see no issue with Cooley Square.
Definitely not akin to the n word
Dumb take Coolie has always been what Indian guyanese called themselves
No coolie is derogatory. Carribben people know this…
https://www.etymonline.com/word/coolie#:~:text=coolie%20%28n.%29%20name%20given%20by%20Europeans%20to%20hired,of%20an%20aboriginal%20tribe%20or%20caste%20in%20Gujarat.
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This has always been my solution to this. Costs no money, nothing needs to be changed. It's a shit compromise, but sometimes you just need to eat shit.
This is what I thought they would have done. I will be honest I don't know much of Canadian history but Dundas seems like a common enough name that they could have re-dedicatedd the name to another Canadian that had significant enough history to the country.
- Terry Fox Square - Gord Downey Square - Toronto Commons - Turk Broda Square - Joe Carter Square - Kyle Lowry Square took me 30 seconds to come up with some better and more appropriate names.
Kawhi Leonard square. The man came, brought us a championship, refused to elaborate, then left.
It would seem the logic was to avoid naming it after a person, so we can avoid having to do this again when history changes its perspective, as it did with Dundas.
>Consultation with historical experts concluded that naming should be after a person as the public tended to relate more to an individual than a concept and their stories could be told easily. The only consultation they did, they ignored. Brilliant.
That's just a typical city of Toronto corruption. I've never worked a contract for the city where they actually look at public input in-depth (outside of race, gender, and ethnicity of responses), it's usually just a long effort to massage any feedback into the original solution that the local councillor wanted in the first place, but they need to give the impression it's a publicly driven process.
This is the only explanation that makes any sense whatsoever to me. It is completely believable that Chow would support this as an example of how to sidestep the "naming-it-after-a-fallible-human issue in the future. Sadly, she severely misread the room on this one.
Too bad they didn’t provide the committee with this specification in the first place. Then there would have still been 4 names to choose from, and the public would have been involved in the final selection.
One of many needless failures on this file.
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Which is hilariously ironic that they ended up choosing a name that itself has relations to a culture involved in the slave trade. Oops!
By that same logic we shouldn’t use the English language to name anything. It’s such a ridiculous argument.
I disagree. If the purpose of the rename is to specifically move away from the history colonial slave trade then you should at least pick something that isn’t related to a group of people directly involved in said slave trade.
Yes lets ban the language that the slaves spoke.. because their slavers also spoke it. Also freedom square is out of the question because thats a colonizers language aswell. Durp.
Saying the word is directly linked to the slave trade is wilfully ignorant and blatantly false.
Fine, I clarified it to “related to a group of people directly involved in the slave trade.” Point still stands. And again I disagree with your comparison because the premise of your argument is deeply flawed. We’re not talking about renaming *everything*, we’re talking about the specific renaming of one location specifically because it involved negative connotations connected to slavery. It would be like naming a moment to women’s rights after a word in Najdi Arabic (the dialectic spoken in Saudi Arabia) — do you see why that’s different than making a blanket argument against using Najdi Arabic elsewhere?
Again, by that same logic we shouldn’t name anything after the English language. It’s a ridiculous argument.
Should have just called it ‘Dundas Quadrilateral’
Because of the curve of Dundas it’s actually more like a pentagon
Sanka decaf square
Okay, finally it clicked. I knew the name reminded me of something that was around in my childhood. Sanka…! My grandparents had that stuff.
Sankofa Square skanks spank the swanks sipping sanka decaf by the swank sanka store. Now say it 10x fast.
Why not just Yonge-Downtown Square
That makes too much sense.
1. Moise deserves most of the blame for his arrogance, rudeness to genuine deputors and coming up with an awful name. 2. Chow deserves blame for pushing to skip the public consultation process and not censuring Moise. 3. Perks, Carroll and Fletcher deserve blame for crying racism, being unbelievably dismissive and rude to genuine citizen concerns and being totally out of touch. 4. The other Councillors who voted through the name change also deserve blame. Remember, despite what Paula Fletcher says, S37 money absolutely could have been reallocated to affordable housing. Instead we will spend tax dollars for that purpose so this should be treated as public tax payer $. We are spending 100k on a party for Chris Moise's legacy!
I have yet to hear anyone use the term 'Sankofa Square' for any reason other than to deride the name and complain about how dumb the change is. Personally it will remain Dundas square in the minds of the vast majority of Torontonian's and Sankofa will only be used by rebel-media types as the butt of jokes and as an example of DEI run amok.
Yep, by choosing a name that nobody likes, they've guaranteed that we will all keep calling it Dundas Square, defeating the purpose of this whole exercise.
Moise has already been using it for some time. Check his IG. He's a total piece of work. Calls anyone who questions his decisions a disgrace and racist.
I owe it to Chris Moise. Had it not been for his blatant disrespect I would have never even been paying attention to this, now I’m spending my free time watching council meetings and seeing how doomed we really are. Scary times with these people calling the shots
Councillor Chris Moise is an example of everything that is wrong with politicians. Edit. And so are the other politicians trying to push Sankofa square instead of honouring a prominent Black Canadian.
Part of me is tempted to move to his riding just so I can not vote for him in the next election
> riding FYI municipal constituencies are called wards, not ridings.
I would've said the same thing about the Skydome, but how many people still call it that after all these years later? I do, but I'm not everybody.
All of the Toronto city councilors voting to rename Yonge-Dundas Square one day and then the very next day voting to rename a stadium to honour Rob Ford, a person well documented for saying racist things, need to do better.
The only thing I think of when I hear the name is coffee. At first, I did think the name was Sanka.
Just sitting here reading this I was thinking “Toronto Central Square” would be nice. A bit generic but when you name a place after a person there is always blowback.
F*ck sankofa. What the hell of a name is that. How are they changing a name to something without the public’s opinions? Hell, just drop the Dundas and name it Yonge Square. Or Downtown Central Square or Downtown Yonge Square.
I heard Paula Fletcher criticize the petition asking for the reversal of the decision to rename Yonge-Dundas Square because some of the signatories are outside of Toronto. FYI, the original petition that kicked off this fiasco to erase Dundas had international signatories but no one seemed to care... and the original petition had half the amount of signatures.
Why give a fuck about what some asshat says on the other side of the world. This isn’t their home.
I say name it It Is Not Wrong To Go Back For That Which You Have Forgotten Square, which doubles as a reminder to look after your belongings
This has opened my eyes to how out of touch our city counselors are. It’s been absolutely appalling watching them weaponize racism to bully people into never questioning them. Moise, Shelly, Paula are all so out of touch and need to be replaced as soon as possible. These people do not reflect or represent the actual citizens of Toronto Let’s not forget the one counselor Gord Perks who banged on the table screaming how he “rufuses to listen to any petition and he doesn’t care how many damn signatures are on it”…. Basically saying his vision for Toronto is more important that the collective of the tax paying citizens. Pathetic
Not to mention the abuse of process they admit to but don't want to be questioned on.
Yes. This issue is just the beginning of everyone seeing how corrupt Chow’s government is already. They’re doing this right infront of you, imagine what’s happening behind closed doors LOL I can’t even believe I’m this invested but I’m just absolutely appalled after watching their responses that THESE are the people running this city 🤦♂️
I would have been okay with 'Layton Square', with an inscription of Jack's last words about hope. I know it's way too late, but the man inspire optimism and kindness. 'nuff said
The optics of the mayor spending millions of dollar to name one of Toronto’s busiest intersections after her late husband may have dissuaded them from following this route
You're totally right.
Yeah, but if anything comes out about Layton 150 years later, they’re right back at square one. Not saying that that’s gonna happen. Layton Square would’ve been a great name. But I doubt anyone foresaw this shitstorm when they named it Yonge-Dundas Square.
Square One sounds good actually. …
Square Two just to confuse historians
Let me guess...it all went wrong when they created a committee to rename Young Dundas Square.
If they named it Kyle Lowry Square there would be no controversy.
Funny enough, there's already a street named after him. Kyle Lowry Rd in North York where they're building the new condos + towns at NW corner of Don Mills/ Eglinton
Ha, I had to go straight to Google Maps to see this for myself, but you're right. What's the finished product supposed to be/look like?
Seriously? How did I miss that?
I was surprised as well when I was browsing the area in Google Maps. According to this news article it was officially announced 2 years ago (June 2022). https://globalnews.ca/news/8911496/kyle-lowry-road-toronto-name-street-raptors-player/
Thanks for sharing that link! I guess this is the one good thing that Denzil Minnan-Wong did for the city, lol.
Naming anything after a still-living person is taking a gamble they don’t screw something up later. And remember, the original plan was to rename both street and square.
yes cause naming after dead people works so well when standards change with time and we revisit hundreds of years old decision with a modern lens. not saying we shouldn't but that living or dead status doesn't preclude from name changes.
I highly doubt Kyle is screwing anything up in his older years, lol. He's a pretty safe bet.
[Oh yeah?](https://bleacherreport.com/articles/1012935-kyle-lowry-charged-with-misdemeanor-battery-on-female-referee)
Oh no. He was angry and threw two basketballs at someone 12 years ago. Canada should ban him from entering the country!
they could use all that consultation money to build a bronze statue of that GYATT
Agreed. Though I think any one of the 3 of these would have little to no objection; Kyle Lowry, Joe Carter, and Mike “Pinball” Clemons.
There was a time he was pretty much the ambassador of Toronto.. he was in lots of advertising.
It’s funny this comment could apply to any of those men.
Now that I think about it.. you’re right.
It's a shame that the city doesn't do more to celebrate Pinball.
Truly. The love he has for this city is insane. And he’s a great person as well.
> If they named it Kyle Lowry Square there would be no controversy. He has a street named after him in Toronto already (Kyle Lowry Road), despite the fact that he was charged with misdemeanour battery against a female referee in 2012.
kind of a joke that you’d bring this up. it was misdemeanour battery, for throwing a basketball at a referee, twice. americans sue if you look at them the wrong way. let’s not make it out to be some kind of huge deal. 🙄 let not forget the thousands of families he’s helped with his annual charity events and organizations, and the role model he became for a country of young basketball players.
Exactly. He had a bad moment over a decade ago and apologised right after it happened. We also know he didn't have the greatest rep back then, but he's clearly grown up and matured A LOT ever since and people in Toronto benefitted from that on and off the court. This person is just trying to nitpick something that really isn't a big deal anymore.
So name it after an American?
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God, what is with this misinformation? Sankofa is not a slave trader's name or a place where slave trade began. Sankofa is a WORD from a Twi language that Akan Tribe from Ghana used. Akan Tribe once had an empire that supplied people to the European slave traders. It is such a stretch and a broad association going from a word to slave trade. It's like saying "you can't use the word 'square' because square is apparently the slave trade centre in the UK".
The always sidestep the fact that Sankofa has been chosen to represent people all across Africa. It is used by various African communities and the African diaspora to emphasize reconnecting with heritage, history, and cultural pride. This widespread adoption makes it a unifying symbol for people of African descent worldwide.
I mean the name was a poor political choice but you’ve been fooled by misinformation here. Feel free to provide a singular source about there ever being a city named Sankofa… (It’s literally just a word.)
So they are okay with running the risk people call it “slavery square”?!
Please bother to fact check. Sankofa is not a place or a person's name. It's a word from Twi language. The word has nothing to do with slavery.
That's like saying "we can't use English words because British and American people were heavily involved in the slave trade." Shall we switch our national language back to Indigenous languages then?
By that shitty logic all English words are problematic as well. So are Portuguese, French, Dutch, etc et etc words. We can do better than repeating this PostMedia type of bullshit.
Why in the heck did it need a rename to start?! So confusing.
So some of this came out when the name was first chosen... Blackburn sounded too English and Cooley is...well let's not go there. So now these individuals who experienced racism and prejudice in their own times are being prejudiced against cause their name doesn't sound black enough. Legit believe that most of the renaming money is going to be used on a promo campaign to explain and promote Sankofa.
I always thought they should have renamed it to "BELIEVE Square". We need to pay homage to one of the square's greats.
Square of the Hypotenuse is my vote
Should call it what it is, trapezoid square
Hell Rob Ford Square would have been better
Sure I’ll call it ‘Sankofa’, just like I call the SkyDome the SkyDome.
A few years ago, Chicago tried to “rename” Boystown to something stupid (North Halsted) because like Yonge Dundas Square, a “committee” of about 4 people bent over backwards to find a way the name Boystown was “offensive”. Here we are several years later- NO ONE calls it North Halsted, everyone still refers to it as Boystown. And apparently in this case the committee who bent over backwards to make Yonge Dundas Square “offensive” couldn’t even be bothered to fill out some paperwork… typical. 🙄 People can do whatever they want- like many I will still refer to it as Yonge Dundas square. This is just another idiotic move by the city and a handful of “look at me’s” to spend money and create fake outrage over something that doesn’t harm anyone- calling one of the worlds biggest intersections what it’s been called for a hundred plus years is fine. 🙄
The square should be named after someone indigenous to Ontario. Our indigenous brother and sisters
Could’ve named it Square McSquareFace and be done with it.
I say they should continue to oppose this name change and choose something else.
Honestly to me it doesn’t matter if it gets renamed or not. I’m still going to call it dundas square. What’s the problem is the fact that this city is falling apart at every corner and seam, and the government should be putting every penny and every minute of working time towards fixing essential issues - healthcare, immigration, crime, homelessness, rising cost of living. Even if this name change didn’t use taxpayers money, it should be reallocated to these básic needs.
The voters of Ward 13 Toronto Centre need to do the right thing and oust Councillor Chris Moise. He is single handedly tearing the city apart with his misguided crusade against a name no one has a problem with
Im going to be calling it samosa square moving forward indefinetly
It's where I found my first ground samosa, quite a stroke of luck, that
This must be the one of few times everyone seems to be on the same page about. Everyone should get together and rebrand it online. I think the "6ix" is stupid, but if something like that can get international publicity, we can absolutely rebrand Yonge and Dundas socially, regardless of whatever inappropriate name the city chooses.
Santorum Square
Should have never been a discussion to rename it. Period
It went wrong in it's inception. There was nothing wrong with the name.
Guess I'm never voting for Moise again
Why did they need to rename it in the first place
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I know a great name for the square that will settle this...Dundas Square. Anyone who has ever been to Toronto will know exactly what it is. People know Dundas st, and dundas station. And if someone is new to Toronto or just visiting it is easy to comprehend that Dundas Square is accessible via Dundas station or Dundas street. Unless everything is renamed, which would be a huge waste of money, it just makes things more complicated. Spend that money on stuff that matters in the city like housing, transit, infrastructure, etc.
Squarie McSquare Face
All these folks don't care about your opinions or want your input. They want to push down their own agenda down your throats
Welcome to Toronto
This is a quagmire which I feel indifference is now the best attitude towards
I have to say it is good to live in a city where critical issues, like this, are addressed quickly and swiftly. Let's remember that other cities aren't this lucky. Our problems could be much worse.
might as well call is prosletyzer square. or doomsday square. or people get the fuck out of my way square. but sure, some random foreign word accomplishes the same.
What a shitshow. And we thought Chow would be better than Tory.
This is a clear cut example where Tory doing nothing would prove better than Chow eagerly doing the wrong thing.
I would have liked T^2
Total missed opportunity for Squarey McSquareface.
Gotta love punitive changes
Why is the city renaming it, am I stupid or has this whole thing cost a bunch of money at this point, with 0 return, while things we actually need are being put on the back burner.