NEWS: The person responsible for the Dundas Street renaming fiasco "is no longer working for the City of Toronto," according to a recent email to city staff. The email provided no reason for the departure of Cheryl Blackman, the now-former lead manager for the Dundas Street Renaming Project and head of Heritage and Museums. The renaming campaign led by Blackman alienated the vast majority of Torontonians. More than 3 years after the city received the petition to rename Dundas Street, only 16 per cent of Torontonians supported the plan. Ms. Blackman was well-known for her other "decolonizing" efforts as well: tnc.news/2024/02/20/tor… Here’s a reminder of just a few of the tactics used by Ms. Blackman and her team to steer Council towards renaming everything "Dundas," prompting the backlash among city residents: (a) defied the mandate to conduct public consultations on renaming; (b) kept the decision to cancel public consultations secret for 6 months; (c) provided Council with patently false historical information about Henry Dundas; (d) ignored eminent historians and peer-reviewed research that exonerated Henry Dundas, and (e) hired an ultra-left DEI consultant from Ottawa, with no experience in public communication campaigns, to advise the city on strategy. We have documented these events here: hdcommittee.medium.com/was-toronto-mi… here: hdcommittee.medium.com/biased-researc… and here: hdcommittee.medium.com/emerging-conse…
@jldundas I was surprised that three former mayors felt strongly enough to write a public letter condemning the move and that it still went forward.
@jldundas I certainly hope this means it will stay as Dundas Square
@jldundas "Heritage Toronto is a City agency that promotes public awareness, understanding and appreciation of Toronto’s cultural, architectural, archaeological and natural heritage." Hard to promote awareness & understanding of heritage if they keep renaming things.
@jldundas Maybe there is hope yet for a Liberal to do an about face on a very poor policy rather than doubling down in the face of opposition
@jldundas I wonder if she led the dis/mantle exhibit at Spadina Museum where they introduced an ‘imagined’ history of who lived there. I thought that was so odd. Imagine the Black woman who was the laundress was actually the homeowner.