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If some people with a petition want a street renamed, they should front the cost - in total - themselves. The costs to the city, to every resident and business along the street, to the TTC. They may not feel so enthusiastic about the idea if they were asked to put their money where their mouth is.
Do you think those people don’t pay taxes?

But hey, if you want I’ll pay you $2.15 in four yearly instalments if you’re so worried about the personal cost to you. Don’t spend it all in one place, k?

Second; council visited in the majority to do this.

Third; I have yet to see any number of “against” signatories close to or greater than those who signed in favour of changing it.
 
Do you think those people don’t pay taxes?

But hey, if you want I’ll pay you $2.15 in four yearly instalments if you’re so worried about the personal cost to you. Don’t spend it all in one place, k?
That's not the point. $9 million is a lot of money that can purchase a whole lot of things. We are in an era of runaway inflation, there is a housing and affordability crisis, and neoliberal politicians have spent the last 40 years cutting our health care system and infrastructure maintenance. With the city crumbling around us as we speak, I don't understand how we can possibly justify spending so much cash on showing off what good people we are. Sure, such a sum wouldn't fully fix any of these problems, but that doesn't make it good fiscal policy to piss away all that cash instead.

Second; council visited in the majority to do this.
If the majority of council wants to do this, it's a clear sign that it's a ridiculous idea not worth pursuing. Anyone who has followed Toronto politics, even badly, over the last 15 years should by now realize that city council are a bunch of clowns who exist only to perpetuate the illusion that there is someone out there steering the ship that is Toronto.

Third; I have yet to see any number of “against” signatories close to or greater than those who signed in favour of changing it.
Probably because most people in the year 2023 realize that petitions are a complete waste of time.

Let's not forget that 14,000 people out of a city of more than 2 million is hardly a significant portion of the population.
 



Because you don’t like it?

No.

But you just managed to get yourself on Ignore for one of the most foolish and inflammatory comments in the history of UT.

14,000 people gave their signature to change it. Did 14,001 do so to keep it the same
City council voted more than ⅔ in favour of renaming it, too.

14,000 people, in a city of 3,000,000.

So, not 10%, not 1% , but less than 0.5% of the population, none of whom demonstrated an actual understanding of the issue, or the implications of their request.

But some opinion pieces in conservative papers think we shouldn’t, so I guess we shouldn’t.

I could care less about what any conservative, liberal, socialist or other publication has to say about anything. I base my views on evidence.

“Slow transition” could be seen as slow walking, depending on where one sits.

The public was in favour of immediate abolition. He would certainly have had public support, and was perceived to hold more power over parliament than the King himself.

Conjecture, at best.

Let’s not forget it was he who added “gradual” to Wilberforce’s bill. Why does a man known for unequaled, strong handed political power need to broker a compromise? a compromise that conveniently benefited him as Secretary of War.

Right, he got the bill passed that had failed by amending it.

“the wilful misreading of history”?

The historical record for Dundas isn’t exactly lily-white. Aside from taking his wife’s birthright and family home, he was impeached for defrauding the government and was called “the great tyrant” all throughout his time in politics. One doesn’t get a name like that for no reason.

As Secretary of War, he also had a bunch of free Jamaican Maroons from Trelawney Town (including ancestors of my brother-in-law) forcibly deported to Nova Scotia. But hey, he was a nice guy.

At no point did I say he was a 'nice guy' and if the failure to be such was the standard for re-naming things, we would have to rename everything.
Not every historian is in agreement that his legacy was positive. But the fact that he wasn’t well liked in his time, and did some otherwise crappy things, shows me he wasn’t all that great a human being. And despite being “the victor”, parliament was instilled a term for politicking still referred to as “Dundas Despotism”.

So is he really deserving of having his name on something for eternity? On a street in a country he never visited, only done so as a patronage for being best buds with Lord Simcoe?

But there’s a reason no-one’s calling for a renaming of everything named after Simcoe; because his history as a person and a politician are far more clear-cut. His “compromise” in abolishing slavery actually did stop new slaves in Upper Canada, an example set three years before 1796 when Dundas made a speech against abolition.

At best, Dundas was a pure game-playing politician and more likely an opportunist, who certainly wasn’t deserving of the kind of reverence some here demand we give the man.

And again, does so much stuff in our country need to be named after middling-to-terrible people out of patronage? Isn’t that a wrong to right on its own?

If it truly is about cost, why not do it now, rather than wait until years in the future when it’s more expensive?

I could care less about any of the above. As I equally could care about hurting a dead man's feelings or those of his descendants.

I'm more interested in your desire to rename Jarvis street ( Samuel Jarvis was a slave owner);

Perhaps we should discuss Brantford, named for Mohawk chief Joseph Brant........who also owned a slave..........

From the wikipedia entry:

1691374780154.png


I can easily provide similar evidence on a dozen more figures without much thought, I do possess a degree on the subject.

But I won't bother.

We're done.
 
That's not the point. $9 million is a lot of money that can purchase a whole lot of things. We are in an era of runaway inflation, there is a housing and affordability crisis, and neoliberal politicians have spent the last 40 years cutting our health care system and infrastructure maintenance. With the city crumbling around us as we speak, I don't understand how we can possibly justify spending so much cash on showing off what good people we are. Sure, such a sum wouldn't fully fix any of these problems, but that doesn't make it good fiscal policy to piss away all that cash instead.
So all the money that’s gone into it already is okay to piss away? Based on EX16.3, we'll have already paid $1.6million.

Aside from those already sunk costs…

Given the history, we’ve turned over our street signage about once every 20-25 years. Our current blue and white signage is coming up on 20 years since its introduction. The whole of the city signage might get a makeover by the time we actually get around to renaming Dundas. And then three’s just routine wear and tear. Those costs wouldn't get incurred twice. Duplicated costs artificially inflate that price.

A good portion of it is likely to have been spent in extremely similar ways anyhow. It's not something that's going to cost each individual Torontonian very much. We're talking the cost of going for lunch at McDonalds, amortized over a couple of years. It's a one-time, non-recurring cost.

Remember, the cost analysis was about how much everything would cost in total, not how much would already be covered in other ways.

If the majority of council wants to do this, it's a clear sign that it's a ridiculous idea not worth pursuing. Anyone who has followed Toronto politics, even badly, over the last 15 years should by now realize that city council are a bunch of clowns who exist only to perpetuate the illusion that there is someone out there steering the ship that is Toronto.

Are they clowns when they make decisions you agree with? Or just when you don't? There will always be some people who make decisions one doesn't like, whether that's amongst the general public or on city council, but implying they're all just less intelligent, irrational or whatnot isn't fair. I've said this before, many people get into politics to legitimately try and make things better. Ignoring that just seems like a way of otherizing to justify one's reasoning.

Probably because most people in the year 2023 realize that petitions are a complete waste of time.

Do they? Or are you projecting? Plenty of petitions get brought to city council every year, many with far less signatories. The people signing them obviously didn't think they were a waste of time.

Those are only 14,000 people who knew about the petition. Did you know about it before it was recorded in council? I didn't.
We put more trust in polls when a much smaller number of people are surveyed to find out who they're gonna vote for. Why must the immediate response to a petition like this be that the participants are idiots, uninformed, politically motivated, or all of the above?

Self-awareness is crucial. You can't just delegitimize people's actions because you don't agree with them.

Let's not forget that 14,000 people out of a city of more than 2 million is hardly a significant portion of the population.
0.5% of something is “hardly a significant portion”, but 0.057% is “a lot”?

$8.6m is literal pocket change for a city with a $15B operating budget. This is not money that can do anything to make a dent in any of our current crises, but it can do something that people and their elected representatives actually asked for.
 
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But you just managed to get yourself on Ignore for one of the most foolish and inflammatory comments in the history of UT.

So the point of responding and subsequently ignoring kinda seems like a jerky “I’ve gotta get the last word”-thing to do.

And telling me you’re ignoring me, even more so.

If it makes you feel better to ignore me, hey, that’s fine. But you’ve gone and made theatre out of it for what reason?
 
So all the money that’s gone into it already is okay to piss away? Based on EX16.3, we'll have already paid $1.6million.

Aside from those already sunk costs
Sunk cost fallacy.
We put more trust in polls when a much smaller number of people are surveyed to find out who they're gonna vote for. Why must the immediate response to a petition like this be that the participants are idiots, uninformed, politically motivated, or all of the above?
Are you equating polling to random petitions? That's wild.
This is not money that can do anything to make a dent in any of our current crises, but it can do something that people and their elected representatives actually asked for.
People ask for a lot of stupid things from government, that an insignificant amount ask for something isn't sufficient reason to do it.
 
That's not the point. $9 million is a lot of money that can purchase a whole lot of things. We are in an era of runaway inflation, there is a housing and affordability crisis, and neoliberal politicians have spent the last 40 years cutting our health care system and infrastructure maintenance. With the city crumbling around us as we speak, I don't understand how we can possibly justify spending so much cash on showing off what good people we are. Sure, such a sum wouldn't fully fix any of these problems, but that doesn't make it good fiscal policy to piss away all that cash instead.
The Chow honeymoon will be quickly coming to an end if she cannot resolve this issue competently. She cannot turn her pockets inside out (literally) while complaining to higher levels of government about funding, and then spend $9 million on this (with additional costs incurred by residents and businesses as deeds, mortgages and addresses all need to be changed).

Ideally as others have mentioned, the logical 'go-ahead' solution (ignoring the fallacy of the whole renaming cause) would be to rededicate this street to another Dundas, i.e. John Dundas (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dundas_(RAF_officer). This was something already done with King County in Washington State (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_County,_Washington).
 
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Our current blue and white signage is coming up on 20 years since its introduction. The whole of the city signage might get a makeover by the time we actually get around to renaming Dundas. And then three’s just routine wear and tear. Those costs wouldn't get incurred twice. Duplicated costs artificially inflate that price.
Street signs are only one piece of the puzzle.

What about all the paperwork for every individual and business who lives on Dundas Street?

Are they clowns when they make decisions you agree with? Or just when you don't?
City council very rarely ever makes decisions I agree with, so it's a moot point.

I want to see a city with affordable housing, robust social services and mental health care that ensure that those who need it get the care they need, and that they are a danger to neither themselves nor others; a city with a reliable, expansive transit network; a city with an attractive public realm; a city with many pleasant spaces to go where one doesn't have to worry about breathing in the fumes of cars.

Some of this seems to be slowly coming together, but much too slowly; some of this won't happen for generations, some of this probably won't ever happen.

So, yes, council continue to be a bunch of clowns. If they put a fraction of the thought into solving our homeless and affordability crisis that they put into stupid garbage like this, we'd actually move forward, somehow. I know I'm asking for a lot.

The people signing them obviously didn't think they were a waste of time.
Lots of people do lots of things they don't think are wastes of time, but others do.

Did you know about it before it was recorded in council? I didn't.
I did. I saw it circulating on the front pages of r/toronto shortly after it was created. I thought it was performative then, and I think it's performative now.

There are a lot more than 14,000 people who knew about the petition. 14,000 is only the number of people who thought the petition was worth putting their weight behind.

We put more trust in polls when a much smaller number of people are surveyed to find out who they're gonna vote for.
Who's we? I don't trust polls either.

Why must the immediate response to a petition like this be that the participants are idiots, uninformed, politically motivated, or all of the above?
The immediate response to a petition is not that the participants are idiots, uninformed, politically motivated, or all of the above.

The immediate response to a petition is: what are these people asking for? Is it reasonable? Is fulfilling this petition the best use of limited resources? And in the case of the Dundas Street renaming, it is a resounding no.

0.5% of something is “hardly a significant portion”, but 0.057% is “a lot”?
I don't know where I said that. But it is rather disingenuous to suggest that the idea was popular. 14,000 is a trivial number. If you ran a referendum on the issue and made voting mandatory for every citizen of the city, are you confident you would get an overwhelmingly in favour response?

$8.6m is literal pocket change for a city with a $15B operating budget.
If memory serves, the city just had to cut a whole bunch of TTC services just earlier this year. I doubt that that amount would have been able to hold of all the cuts, but every little bit helps. It says a lot about the priorities of the bozos running this city that they jump at the chance to cut the TTC budget, but feel no qualms about wasting this much money on performative actions like this.

What about all the homeless people in the city? How many of them could you house and feed for $8.6m? Lots of working class people get by on yearly incomes of much less than $100,000 per year, so if you used that money to try to improve the lives of these people, you'd probably achieve some respectable results. This would have a real, tangible effect on the lives of people, whereas the renaming of a street would be a merely symbolic gesture that wouldn't actually help anyone or solve any known problems.
 
The Chow honeymoon will be quickly coming to an end if she cannot resolve this issue competently. She cannot turn her pockets inside out (literally) while complaining to higher levels of government about funding, and then spend $9 million on this (with additional costs incurred by residents and businesses as deeds, mortgages and addresses all need to be changed).

Ideally as others have mentioned, the logical 'go-ahead' solution (ignoring the fallacy of the whole renaming cause) would be to rededicate this street to another Dundas, i.e. John Dundas (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dundas_(RAF_officer). This was something already done with King County in Washington State (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_County,_Washington).
It is the most logical thing, wish someone would do some polling on this because I believe most Torontonians would agree with this. Why can't we just do this? Dundas (the word) is not going to just cease to exist, Mississauga is keeping it, thousands of Torontonians have the surname, some businesses may still keep it, signage on Highways to Dundas St (on the 427, for example, which leads to the Etob/Sauga border will still have to say "Dundas". Many people are arguing that even seeing the name Dundas is harmful - well that name won't cease to exist even if we spend 10+ million renaming the streets.
 
Street signs are only one piece of the puzzle.
Signage and way finding is likely to be the largest capital expense though.
What about all the paperwork for every individual and business who lives on Dundas Street?
If you read the proposal, most of this is cost-free as the vast majority would be online, or covered by Canada Post, as what happens any time a street name is rejiggered, street numbers realigned, etc. CP will direct all mail with the old addresses to the new ones free of charge for a year. There were amounts mentioned for a small amount of remuneration for the businesses and those directly affected (ie; the 60 businesses using "Dundas" in their name name, or a reprinting of business cards, etc.), but even the city claims these are token amounts and will not cover an individual or company's full expenses. Frankly speaking though, the city doesn't have to give anyone anything if they change the name. Ask those who had their address changed when the city merged Dunbloor Rd into Dundas Street in 2019, but I digress.

The biggest expense is likely to be the two Subway Stations and Yonge-Dundas Square. But updates to TTC maps and way-finding, etc. already happen every couple of years (or more frequently, with several ongoing accessibility upgrades), and will certainly happen when the Crosstown is (finally) completed, duplicating a lot of the rename's costs. Some signage within the station will need to be updated, but honestly both Dundas West and Dundas stations are overdue for some TLC. Y-D square will likely be the single biggest change. And again, mostly just signage.

City council very rarely ever makes decisions I agree with, so it's a moot point.

I want to see a city with affordable housing, robust social services and mental health care that ensure that those who need it get the care they need, and that they are a danger to neither themselves nor others; a city with a reliable, expansive transit network; a city with an attractive public realm; a city with many pleasant spaces to go where one doesn't have to worry about breathing in the fumes of cars.
I want the same; but I'm also acutely aware of my place in a highly multicultural city – one where the transgressions of past colonialism aren't always forgotten in some communities. My brother-in-law's family still tells stories of their forced deportation from Jamaica, btw. It's how I know that not all Maroons left Nova Scotia; some joined communities of deported British loyalists there.

Some of this seems to be slowly coming together, but much too slowly; some of this won't happen for generations, some of this probably won't ever happen.

So, yes, council continue to be a bunch of clowns. If they put a fraction of the thought into solving our homeless and affordability crisis that they put into stupid garbage like this, we'd actually move forward, somehow. I know I'm asking for a lot.

It's not a lack of thought that's the problem, it's starvation from upper governments of funding we are entitled to costs forced upon us. The austerity isn't ours to own. Otherwise we just let people like Doug Ford get proxy control over everything municipal. The economic heart of and richest city in the country shouldn't have to be asking for handouts. Meanwhile our premier benefits from the city starving so he can exert greater control, apparently angry he didn't get to be "mare". Focus on the a-hole sitting on billions of taxpayers dollars and work on him to pay his fair share.

I did. I saw it circulating on the front pages of r/toronto shortly after it was created. I thought it was performative then, and I think it's performative now.

Leaders in racialised communities don't think so. People seem to forget that 20 academics and leaders of communities with interests in this were consulted — Actual experts and such. It's not like the city just saw a petition and jumped on it.

I don't know where I said that.

You said that $8.6 million (0.057% of the city's operating budget) was "a lot", but diminished 0.5% of the population as "not very significant". Just trying to figure out why you minimize the large number and maximize the smaller.

But it is rather disingenuous to suggest that the idea was popular. 14,000 is a trivial number. If you ran a referendum on the issue and made voting mandatory for every citizen of the city, are you confident you would get an overwhelmingly in favour response?

Disingenuous how? Where's the organized outrage against this? The best I can find is a counter-petition that has less than half the signatories as Progress Toronto's 2020 original. There are very few anti-renaming petitions actually out there. I found four. Three are more than 2 years old; The first one listed above, One with less than 150 and another with less than 10 signatures.

Hell, there's even one started 8 months ago by a direct descendant of Henry Dundas that hasn't managed to hit 1,700 signatures, isn't actually directed at anyone and whose attached GoFundMe lists them as the direct beneficiary. Kinda seems like a grift on stoked outrage, but you never know. Of course, CuLtUrE wAr outrage wouldn't be complete if some absolutely abhorrent people didn't come out of the woodwork to make their bigotry known.

As an aside, the absolute astroturfing being done by the Dundas family is astounding. Two organizations (The Henry Dundas Committee for Public Education on Historic Scotland and The Henry Dundas Comittee of Ontario) sprung up nearly overnight in response to decisions made about the Melville Monument and Dundas Street. You'd be tempted to think they might have an air of legitimacy or something, were in not by the fact they're almost completely comprised of Dundas family members and not historians, and have been liberally writing "research papers" lovingly cited by those penning anti-renaming opinion pieces in local media. But again, I digress...

If you combine all the "don't rename Dundas" petitions it still isn't close to what Progress Toronto's initial petition garnered. So even using that as a sample metric for the greater population, more people are interested in renaming it than keeping it the same. Any other reading of it is purely subjective.

What about all the homeless people in the city? How many of them could you house and feed for $8.6m? Lots of working class people get by on yearly incomes of much less than $100,000 per year, so if you used that money to try to improve the lives of these people, you'd probably achieve some respectable results. This would have a real, tangible effect on the lives of people, whereas the renaming of a street would be a merely symbolic gesture that wouldn't actually help anyone or solve any known problems.
How is cutting from a very small expenditure more important than cutting the bloated ($1.16B) police budget, or scrapping the costly Gardiner rebuild? Cut those first before the small thing that's barely a dent. While I hate government/household budget comparisons, if you're starving; do you cut the $100 a month trips to the salon and the $150 cable bill, or the cup of timmies you get once in a while?

We make lots of "symbolic gestures" in this city that offer little overall benefit. How much would we save getting rid of heritage plaques? Nuit Blanche? Every street festival, every arts program that gets TCA funding, etc.?

I don't support cutting them either, but some of them would fall under symbolic, frivolous gestures that do little to actually benefit anyone and cost more than the city brings in from them. A city isn't built to fight one fire at a time or to be run like a business. It's there to support everyone.

I don't buy the slippery slope argument that will just lead to every street in the city being renamed to something politically correct. Each would require a council vote, tally of cost, etc. Just as the demolition of a single heritage property doesn't mean all are suddenly on the table. That's just slippery slope fear mongering.

There's a reason it's important with Dundas St. though; and it is the exactly the symbolism of renaming one of the longest, most recognized and used streets in this city. It runs the length of the city, through its core. And yes, it will cost money to do. It's not free. Which is precisely why it's not an empty gesture. Otherwise there will always be "more pressing issues" to justify ignoring the lesser ones.

Can we remove "proposed" from the title of this thread already by the way? According to council and both mayors, it's a done deal.
 
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Is it the word Dundas you don't like or the person behind the word, though? If it's the actual word Dundas, that isn't going anywhere. If it's the person, then yes get rid of any mention of that person or statue, or plaque, or whatever it is. You seem to not want to comment on this.
 
Just changed the friggin name to another Dundas. Over half the city wasn't even born in Canada, a lot of my fellow immigrant friends don't even know who John A Macdonald was, let alone mr Dundas.
 
Is it the word Dundas you don't like or the person behind the word, though? If it's the actual word Dundas, that isn't going anywhere. If it's the person, then yes get rid of any mention of that person or statue, or plaque, or whatever it is. You seem to not want to comment on this.
I have commented it several times throughout this thread, going back to when it started three years ago.
 
Just changed the friggin name to another Dundas. Over half the city wasn't even born in Canada, a lot of my fellow immigrant friends don't even know who John A Macdonald was, let alone mr Dundas.
So good for them for not wanting to know anything about the history of Canada, the Caribbean, Britain, Pakistan or India (and various other parts of the world)?
 

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