Aristotle Foundation
Toronto cancels history, again: The irony and injustice of renaming Yonge-Dundas Square to Sankofa Square
From the Aristotle Foundation
By Greg Piasetzki
In 2022, Torontonians renamed Ryerson University to Toronto Metropolitan University, “to address the legacy of Egerton Ryerson.”1 Rather than remember him as the founder of Ontario’s system of “free” public schools and libraries, Ryerson was “cancelled” for his suggestions regarding the curriculum for the Indian residential schools that were then being proposed. However, the schools themselves were not built until some 30 years later, after Ryerson was dead. Further, modern complaints about the schools are generally misconceived and have little to do with the curriculum.2
In 2024, Toronto is at it again. This time, the historical figure targeted for cancellation is abolitionist Henry Dundas, as city officials seek to wipe his name from Yonge-Dundas Square. The square is a notable city landmark and one of Canada’s most popular tourist destinations. Filled with brightly lit electronic advertisement billboards, the square serves as an iconic social hub and venue for events connected to Toronto’s cultural festivals. The city’s former mayor, John Tory, summarized the case for renaming the famous square – based on a report from city hall – as follows:
An objective reading of the history, the significance of this street which crosses our city, the fact that Mr. Dundas had virtually no connection to Toronto and our strong commitment to equity, inclusion and reconciliation make this a unique and symbolically important change.3
The new name, “Sankofa Square,” is taken not from anything Torontonian, Ontarian, or even Canadian – but from the Akan people of West Africa.
Ironically, city officials not only appear ignorant of Henry Dundas’ many contributions to Canada, and to the abolition of slavery, but are also blissfully unaware that the Akan people of Africa were notorious slave traders responsible for capturing and selling one to two million of their fellow Africans into slavery.4
The man: Who was Henry Dundas?
Henry Dundas was a Scottish lawyer, politician, and one of British Prime Minister William Pitt’s most trusted and powerful ministers who served during the French Revolution and the Napoleonic wars.
Critically, Dundas was also a staunch abolitionist, committed to ending slavery as an institution in the British Empire and elsewhere in the world.
As early as 1777, when he was in his thirties, Dundas publicly established his abolitionist position on slavery. When Joseph Knight, a slave from Jamaica, was taken to Scotland by his owner, he challenged his status as a slave under Scottish law. Dundas, then Lord Advocate (principal legal advisor to the government), took on Knight’s case in his private capacity as a lawyer. On the final appeal before Scotland’s highest court, Dundas argued passionately, and with some humour, against the inhumanity of slavery:
We may possibly see the master chastising his slave as he does his ox or his horse. Perhaps, too, he may shoot him when he turns old […]
[But] [h]uman nature, my Lords, spurns at the thought of slavery among any part of our species.5
The court agreed and declared that no slave could remain a slave once they arrived on Scottish soil.6
A decade later, a religiously-inspired Christian abolition movement began in Britain (most famously personified by William Wilberforce) with the goal of ending the Atlantic slave trade. Dundas was a supporter of the movement, but urged that its members go further and challenge not just the Atlantic slave trade but seek the abolition of slavery itself – a much bigger challenge since at that time slavery was practiced on every inhabited continent.
During the 300 or more years the transatlantic slave trade existed, estimates are that 10 million to 12 million Africans were captured, enslaved, and sold by their fellow Africans. The purchasers were largely British, Portuguese, and French traders who acted as intermediaries in shipping slaves to the Americas for re-sale. The destination for 50 percent of the slaves was South America, 45 percent went to the West Indies, and about four percent went to what would become the United States.7,8 Dundas understood that, unless slavery itself was ended – with its unrelenting violence, forced labour, and premature death – slavery as an institution would continue for generations, since legally the children of slaves were considered chattel (like livestock) and were thus also slaves like their parents.
The controversy: Did Dundas’ abolitionism go far enough?
Dundas is criticized today for amending a motion in Britain’s Parliament in 1792.9 His original motion called for the immediate end to the slave trade. But outright abolition was unrealistic at the time, and thus historians agree that Dundas’ original motion would surely have failed.10 Moreover, Britain’s competitors – especially the Portuguese and French – would have simply picked up where Britain left off. Realizing this, Dundas made a strategic pivot and called for a gradual end to the slave trade. His strategy worked, and his amended motion succeeded with a significant majority.11
Change would take time. Only about one percent of the adult population had the right to vote,12 and many had at least an indirect financial interest in West Indian plantations (as did numerous Members of Parliament), and trade with the plantations generated income for businesses in England and tariff revenue for the Crown. Surmounting such entrenched interests would not happen overnight.
And this is why Dundas’ successful motion was key: it shifted the tenor of the public discourse. For the first time, ending the slave trade was up for debate. The British empire at this time was nearing its peak as the largest empire in history, with enormous influence, and thus this step was significant in the eventual abolition of slavery worldwide.
The Toronto connection: Dundas the humanitarian
For his role in abolishing slavery, Dundas ought to be celebrated. The same is true of his major influence on the colonies that would become Canada and, in particular, on what would become the province of Ontario and the city of Toronto. Importantly, that influence was wielded in support of issues that, today, would be described as relating to equity, inclusion, and reconciliation—ironically, the exact criteria (“commitments”) justifying the city’s condemnation of him.
Appointing Simcoe, the empire’s first legislator to outlaw slavery
Dundas was a close friend of John Graves Simcoe (another staunch abolitionist), and he appointed Simcoe as the first lieutenant-governor of Upper Canada in 1791. It was Simcoe who, two years later, would introduce the Act to Limit Slavery in Upper Canada, the very first legislation in the entire British empire to limit slavery.14
The legislation passed, beginning the abolition of slavery in the province. Although the legislation did not free slaves already present, it freed the children of such slaves at age 25, and made Upper Canada a safe haven for slaves fleeing the United States.15 Like the precedent Dundas set in Scotland, no slave could remain a slave on Upper Canadian soil. Over the next seven decades, more than 40,000 black men and women would risk their lives to escape slavery and find freedom in Upper Canada.
When Dundas appointed Simcoe, he knew about Simcoe’s abolitionist sympathies—and almost certainly anticipated the legislation he would propose.16 And thus, Dundas made possible what became known as the Underground Railroad.
Honouring black soldiers
Dundas also ordered the governors of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick to honour Britain’s promise of land grants to 4,000 former slaves who had fought for the British against the American Revolution, and to offer free passage – courtesy of the British navy – to any who preferred to return to Africa.17
Initiating official bilingualism
Upon the division of the then-province of Quebec into Upper Canada (present-day Ontario) and Lower Canada (present-day Quebec) in 1791, Dundas instructed the English governor of Lower Canada to allow French-speaking parliamentarians to pass laws in French.18 This was a serious point of disagreement in the newly formed legislative assembly, as the (powerful) English minority insisted all British subjects be governed in English. Dundas solved the impasse by ordering that legislation be passed in both languages, in what is the first example of official bilingualism in Canadian history. (For context, this occurred only months after England and France were, once again, at war; and thus this act was truly magnanimous.)19
Defending indigenous peoples
Finally, following American Independence, Yankee incursions into Canadian territory were a very real and constant threat. Dundas, as secretary of state for Home Affairs, instructed the Canadian governor Sir Guy Carleton to intervene against the Americans and protect the interests of the “Indian Nations”:
…securing to them the peaceable and quiet possession of the Lands which they have hitherto occupied as their hunting Grounds, and such others as may enable them to procure a comfortable subsistence for themselves and their families.20
The irony: Replacing the abolitionist with slave traders
Given the evidence, Toronto city council’s treatment of Dundas is clearly not only ahistorical but shameful. Regrettably, so is their adoption of the replacement, the term “Sankofa” from the Akan language. Little needs to be said here, other than this: The Akan peoples of West Africa were notorious slave traders. During the transatlantic slave trade, the Akan captured, enslaved, and sold one to two million fellow Africans into slavery. In other words, the Akan were the source of 10 to 20 percent of all transatlantic slaves.
Conclusion
The Toronto city council narrative surrounding the renaming of Yonge-Dundas Square flies in the face of historical fact. Dundas was demonstrably ahead of his time as a humanitarian. And as a politician, he was not only principled and morally courageous but effective. Dundas was one of the key figures in abolishing the slave trade, opening up the Underground Railroad, and protecting minorities of various backgrounds—black, French, and indigenous. If the city really wants to promote the act of “reflecting on and reclaiming teachings from the past,”21 as it claims, it might do well to start with the truth about Henry Dundas’ legacy. There may be times to rename a place or landmark, but this is not one of them.
Endnotes
About the author
Greg Piasetzki is a Toronto-based intellectual property lawyer, a senior fellow with the Aristotle Foundation for Public Policy, and a citizen of the Métis Nation of Ontario.
About the Aristotle Foundation for Public Policy
Who we are
The Aristotle Foundation for Public Policy is a new education and public policy think tank that aims to renew a civil, common-sense approach to public discourse and public policy in Canada.
The Vancouver Park Board hasn’t caved to the anti-J.K. Rowling activists, but their campaign shows a need for common sense
This November, Harry Potter is coming to Vancouver’s Stanley Park. And some people aren’t happy.
The park will host Harry Potter: A Forbidden Forest Experience, an immersive exhibit that’s been staged around the world, prompting outrage from the gay and trans community. Why? Because J.K. Rowling, the creative genius behind the Harry Potter franchise, has been deemed a heretic — a “transphobe” — for her publicly stated view that men are men and women are women.
Rowling’s journey into so-called heresy began almost six years ago when she dared to publicly support Maya Forstater, a British tax expert who lost her job for asserting on social media that transgender women remain men.
“Dress however you please,” Rowling posted on Twitter in 2019. “Sleep with any consenting adult who’ll have you. Live your best life in peace and security. But force women out of their jobs for stating that sex is real? #IStandWithMaya #ThisIsNotADrill.”
It seemed to me and many others a rather benign tweet. But it was enough to generate global outrage from the trans community and its supporters. Rowling’s books have been boycotted and burned, with even the actors who portrayed Harry Potter characters on screen — most notably Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint — turning against the author who made them famous.
And yet Rowling has stuck to her guns, defending women and their right to enjoy spaces free of biological males in shelters, prisons, sports and so on. And she has stood against the “gender-affirming care” model that transitions children; in an X post last December, she said, “There are no trans kids. No child is ‘born in the wrong body.’”
It is — or should be — fair game to debate Rowling’s views. But in the hyper-polarized world of transgenderism, debate isn’t permitted. Only cancellation will suffice. Hence the angry response to the Vancouver Park Board’s greenlighting of the “Forest Experience” exhibit.
Vancouver city councillors Lucy Maloney and Sean Orr have called for the park board to reverse its decision.
“The trans and two-spirit community have made their voices heard already about how upset they are that this is happening,” Maloney said. “J.K. Rowling’s actions against the trans community are so egregious that I think we need to look at changing our minds on this.”
Orr concurred. “This is a reputational risk for the park board right now,” he said. “If there’s a way we can get out of this, we should consider this.
Thus far, thankfully, most park board commissioners have stood their ground. The exhibit is scheduled to go ahead as planned.
It’s worth emphasizing that since Rowling began her public defence of biological reality, much has changed. In 2024, the final report of the United Kingdom’s Cass Review exposed the shocking lack of evidence for the “gender-affirming” model of care; this led to a ban on puberty blockers in that country. Multiple European jurisdictions have done the same, enacting safeguards around transitioning youth. Major sports organizations have begun formally excluding biological males from female competitions. And in April 2025, the British Supreme Court decreed that “woman” and “sex” refer to biological sex assigned at birth, not gender identity.
Suffice it to say that Rowling has been vindicated.
Yet, as shown by a report published last year by the Aristotle Foundation (which I co-authored), Canada is increasingly an outlier in doubling down on transgender ideology. The Canadian Medical Association, the Canadian Pediatric Society and the Canadian Psychological Association continue to endorse the “gender-affirming” model of care. Even Canada’s Gordon Guyatt, hailed as one of the “fathers” of evidence-based medicine, has been cowed into distancing himself from his own research, which laid bare the scant amount of evidence supporting “gender-affirming” care.
It’s hard to know what it will take to set Canada back on a path of common sense and scientific rationality. Some Potter-style magic, perhaps. Or failing that, a return to good old-fashioned tolerance for open discussion and an honest exchange of views.
Dr. J. Edward Les is a pediatrician in Calgary and a senior fellow at the Aristotle Foundation for Public Policy. Photo: WikiCommons
Native rights are constitutionally guaranteed; property rights are not. When courts recognize Aboriginal title, it’s easy to see who will win
Think you own your private property? Well think again, as a recent court decision has thrown the entire basis of property ownership into chaos in British Columbia.
In the ultimate “land acknowledgement,” the B.C. Supreme Court released a bombshell judgment last week declaring Aboriginal title for the Cowichan Tribes of Vancouver Island to around 325 hectares on the mainland, in the city of Richmond.
This is the first time a court has declared Aboriginal title over private land in the province, setting a deeply concerning precedent if the ruling is not successfully overturned following an appeal promised by B.C.’s attorney general.
In another troubling precedent, the court also declared that fee simple land titles — the typical form of private property ownership in Canada — in the area are “defective and invalid,” on the basis that the Crown had no authority to issue them in the first place.
As constitutional law professor Dwight Newman points out, if past fee simple grants in areas of Aboriginal title claims are inherently invalid, “then the judgment has a much broader implication that any privately owned lands in B.C. may be subject to being overridden by Aboriginal title.”
The only thing preventing the judge from making a similar declaration over privately held land in the new Aboriginal title area is the fact that the Cowichan did not ask for a declaration to this effect.
But nothing prevents that from happening in the future if the judgment stands. The judge actually contemplates this very scenario, writing that, “Fee simple interests … will go unaffected in practice when Aboriginal title is recognized over that land, unless or until the Aboriginal title holder successfully takes remedial action in respect of the fee simple interests.”
In short, while most private landowners assume their title to their own land is bulletproof, the ruling states: It “cannot be said that a registered owner’s title under the (Land Title Act) is conclusive evidence that the registered owner is indefeasibly entitled to that land as against Aboriginal title holders and claimants.”
It’s worth noting that the claim was contested by two mainland Indigenous groups, the Musqueam and Tsawwassen First Nations, both of whom lay claim to the same land. This highlights the issue of competing claims in a province where the vast majority of the land mass is claimed as traditional territory by one or more of B.C.’s 200-plus Indigenous groups.
While two previous decisions by the Supreme Court of Canada recognized Aboriginal title in British Columbia (Tsilhqot’in in 2014 and Nuchatlaht in 2024), neither declared it over privately held lands as this one does.
Even as the B.C. government has promised to appeal the decision, it has been pursuing similar policies outside the courts. The province controversially overlaid Aboriginal title on private land with its problematic Haida Nation Recognition Act in 2024. The act was specifically referenced by the plaintiffs in the Cowichan case, and the judge agreed that it illustrated how Aboriginal title and fee simple can “coexist.”
This is a questionable assertion given the numerous legal concerns. As one analysis explains, private property interests and the implementation of Aboriginal title are ultimately at odds: “The rights in land which flow from both a fee simple interest and Aboriginal title interest … include exclusive rights to use, occupy and manage lands. The two interests are fundamentally irreconcilable over the same piece of land.”
While the government claims it adequately protected private property rights in the Haida agreement, Aboriginal title is protected under the Constitution, while private property rights are not. When these competing interests are inevitably brought before the courts, it’s easy to imagine which one will prevail.
The fact that B.C. Premier David Eby said last year that he intended to use the Haida agreement as a “template” for other areas of B.C. stands in marked contrast with his sudden interest in an appeal as a means of preserving clear private property titles in the wake of this politically toxic ruling.
Indeed, Eby’s government continues to negotiate similar agreements elsewhere, including with the shíshálh Nation on B.C.’s Sunshine Coast, even as government documents admit that Aboriginal title includes the right to “exclusively use and occupy the land.”
Eby’s commitment to an appeal suggests he may have learned from his costly refusal to appeal a 2021 B.C. Supreme Court decision, which found that excessive development had breached the treaty rights of the Blueberry River First Nation. Eby’s government chose to pay out a $350-million settlement to avoid further litigation, a move that ultimately backfired when the two parties ended up back in court.
But for now, the consequences of the Cowichan decision have created considerable uncertainty for property owners, businesses and general market confidence. The judge’s own words sum it up: “The question of what remains of Aboriginal title after the granting of fee simple title to the same lands should be reversed. The proper question is: what remains of fee simple title after Aboriginal title is recognized in the same lands?”
If there’s one positive aspect to this decision, it’s that it is so extreme, it will force the Eby government’s radical Indigenous policies onto the public agenda as awareness builds over what’s at stake.
From its incessant land acknowledgements, to MLAs referring to non-Indigenous British Columbians as “uninvited guests,” to its embrace of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and its land back policies, to undemocratic land use planning processes and the overlaying of Aboriginal title on private lands, B.C. government policy has long been headed in exactly this direction.
Now, a reckoning is coming, and it’s of the government’s own creation. The broader issue will soon overtake all others in the public eye, and the premier must decide now whether he’ll start walking things back, or double down on his disastrous course.
Caroline Elliott is a senior fellow with the Aristotle Foundation for Public Policy and sits on the board of B.C.’s Public Land Use Society.
Photo: WikiCommons.
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