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â¨A vigorous debate on whether to examine the naming of public assets after Edward Cornwallis ended Tuesday night with HRM Regional Council boldly deciding to maintain the status quo.â¨
At hand was a request from Halifax South Downtown councillor Waye Mason for a staff report on a public engagement process to advise council on the use of Cornwallis’ name on public assets.
Mason admitted it was a largely noncommittal ask, but a conversation he felt HRM needed to have.
“I want to emphasize that I don’t think this will be an easy conversation,” Mason said. “I think it’ll be very, very hard.”
Cornwallis, the founder of Halifax and first governor of Nova Scotia, has in recent years been spoken of more for the 1749 bounty he placed on M’ikmaw scalps than his political achievements.
â¨Efforts by First Nations elders like Daniel Paul and others have caused some buildings—such as Cornwallis Place (now Summit Place) and Cornwallis Junior High (now Halifax Central Junior High)— to change their names. But the moniker remains attached to numerous public assets—most notably Cornwallis Street and Cornwallis Park in the south end, where a statue of the British military officer still stands.â¨
Numerous groups, including the Mi’kmaw Friendship Centre and the Cornwallis Street Baptist Church, have asked council to reexamine the use of Cornwallis’ name.
Those concerns were dismissed on Tuesday, as councillors deferred to the many angry emails they had received by residents who wanted the name and statue to remain.â¨
“You cannot change what happened. It was war, like it or not,” said Spryfield-Sambro Loop-Prospect Road councillor Stephen Adams. “We can’t judge what they did based on today’s standards.”
Other councillors were likewise closed off to the conversation.
“I can’t rationalize this [motion] to the community,” Timberlea-Beechville-Clayton Park-Wedgewood councillor Reg Rankin said, between laments about his Scottish ancestors who he says were also victims of Cornwallis.
⨓I can’t in good conscious do this.”
“I personally believe Cornwallis, he might not have been a perfect figure in history—the only one that was, we crucified him,” said Preston-Chezzetcook-Eastern Shore councillor David Hendsbee. “I probably offended someone just saying that.”
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@RWJBoon RE: Cornwallis debate: “When you’re used to everyone stepping out of your way, equality can feel like oppression.” #twocents
— Rebecca Thomas (@beccaleat) May 11, 2016
Tuesday’s discussion comes five months after HRM passed a statement of reconciliation with First Nations peoples, and two weeks after new poet laureate Rebecca Thomas performed a poem in front of council on the importance of understanding Indigenous perspectives.
Halifax Peninsula North councillor Jennifer Watts—who called that statement of reconciliation one of the most important moments of her political career—implored her fellow councillors on Tuesday to look at “the truth of our history, and all its fullness.”â¨
⨓I don’t believe this is a council that shies from difficult conversations,” said Watts. “That’s why we’re elected…”
Mason’s motion was ultimately defeated eight votes to seven. Councillors David Hendsbee, Lorelei Nicoll, Gloria McCluskey, Linda Mosher, Stephen Adams, Russell Walker, Matt Whitman and Reg Rankin voted against. Not present were councillors Steve Craig and Bill Karsten.â¨
â¨Mason called the result disappointing, but said that another discussion on the topic is “inevitable” given the similar conversations happening elsewhere in the country. He also took issue with an all-white council deciding the concerns of its Indigenous residents weren’t valid.
“We are the government of all the people who live here—doesn’t matter about your skin colour, doesn’t matter whether you’re a settler or First Nations—and I don’t think we did a very good job of representing that today.”â¨
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This article appears in May 5-11, 2016.
And thus freedom of speech and history win yet again.
I don’t have any personal attachment to Cornwallis, I highly doubt anyone really does — but changing names of buildings isn’t going to change history. Are the people who are so opposed to things being ‘Cornwallis’ really going to feel any better if they have different names? If systemic racism is really that big of an issue in our city, is taking down a statue going to fix that? If we agree to remove all evidence of Cornwallis from everything everywhere can we have some kind of deal that white people can stop being villainized in some way, shape, or form for a period of at least 6 months?
I guess we’ll have to cancel this year’s Cornwallis parade and celebration…
I guess we should rip up all the railway tracks across Canada, because, as our “Heritage Moments” have taught us, “there is one dead Chinese for eeeevery mile of track”.
Can we please stop with the dumbing down of our history because it offends someone. The pioneer days were pretty harsh all around, and no matter what background we come from, we all have our proverbial crosses to bare. Why can’t we use these pieces of history as a victory and a testament to how far we have come as a society? In spite of everything that idiot Cornwallis did, there is still a thriving native community here. That statue should make you fucking proud, and as a bonus, you get to give it the finger every time you pass it.
Of course some leftard will keep hammering away on this issue because there is nothing more important than this horseshit!
Instead of fighting “history”, why don’t we focus on present day and our future and try to figure out why Indigenous youth are committing suicide in alarming numbers up north and what we can do to end the cycle.
Halifax’s history isn’t filled with rainbows …. Halifax, as with many “old” cities has a dark past.
Is there a historical record of anyone being killed and scalped as a result of Cornwallis’ bounty?
Jacob… they did not vote to continue to honour Cornwallis; they opted out of the debate. If you remember, it’s like the Great Cat Debate – a bunch of nonsense that Council should never had picked up in the first place… Clearly the majority of residents don’t support the call for changing history so Council (having learned from the Great Cat Debate) stopped wasting time.
No matter what side your opinion leans to, leave it to our council to trump it all with how gutless they are as a group.
Kakera, what would you rather? Your employee doing something constructive like their work or picking their nose?
Pity the poor white man. If only he had some way to influence society and be recognized for his accomplishments.
Germany doesn’t “whitewash” history. It acknowledges the abomination of Hitler as an affront to humanity and most Germans feel a shared responsibility to atone for it. Saying “The Mi’kmaq killed whites too!” and by inference suggesting things were equal is a specious argument and disproof by fallacy. These were not 2 willing, and equally matched, combatants. The British weren’t here to, peacefully, co-exist with the Native people, as the French were doing – the British arrived here for selfish and megalomaniacal reasons and spoiling for a fight – for colonialism and dominance. Saying we can’t judge them by today’s standards is, patently, absurd bc there were prominent Brits and some Clergy who, BACK THEN, knew it was wrong and petitioned the monarchy to stop it (you can see some of the letters at the NS Archives). To get a sense of how asinine and pedantic supporting arguments about “tradition” and “history” are you, merely, have to look at how much the arguments of those wanting to keep honouring Cornwallis mirror the arguments for keeping the names of professional sports teams like the Cleveland “Indians” and Washington “Redskins”. How we treat those who are hurt, defines us.
Its been awhile but the last time I was in Germany I didn’t see any Hitler statues. The Dachau memorial, and its a memorial and not a ‘museum’, wasn’t exactly a celebration.
The Jesus remark was nice. Shoot me now.