The new聽TMU Station name was approved as part of a proposed partnership between the TTC and TMU. The cost of renaming the downtown station, previously pegged at $1.6 million,聽will be covered by the university and remove from the station the name of Henry Dundas 鈥 a Scottish parliamentarian implicated in Britain’s slave trade to the Caribbean.
The City of Toronto聽and TMU have undergone transformations in recent years, attempting to shed controversial historical ties.
As part of the partnership, TMU has proposed the creation of a “Transit Innovation Yard,” meant to help improve transit innovation in Canada. The new collaboration would focus on data-driven transit optimization, improving way-finding and dashboards for customers, track-level security solutions and creating performance indicators for the TTC.
The campaigns to rename TMU and city infrastructure named after聽Dundas were sparked in the summer of 2020, following the murder of George Floyd, a Black man, by Minneapolis police in the U.S. 鈥 which sparked worldwide protests against anti-Black racism.
Born into an influential Scottish family in 1742, Dundas served as Britain鈥檚 home secretary, secretary at war and lord of the Admiralty. Dundas Street was named in 1793 by John Graves Simcoe, the first lieutenant-governor of Upper Canada, who was appointed by Dundas. Simcoe also introduced legislation that year prohibiting the importation of slaves into Upper Canada.
Dundas is on the public record speaking against the slave trade. But in 1792 he successfully encouraged fellow parliamentarians to support a motion to 鈥済radually鈥 abolish the trade that supplied tens of thousands of Africans each year to British Caribbean islands. Historians have debated if he meant to extend a historical injustice, or to prevent calls for a quicker abolition that might have failed and extended slavery.
At Wednesday’s board meeting, Josh Colle, the transit agency’s chief strategy officer, said the TTC has not made any findings on Henry Dundas and his legacy, in response to a question from TTC Chair Jamaal Myers.
鈥淲e will proudly run the Dundas streetcar across the city for many, many years to come. So, we have not made a statement on (Dundas),鈥 Colle said.
He said that renaming Dundas Station came as a directive to the TTC from city council.
Andy Takagi is the transportation reporter for the
Star.聽Reach him via email: atakagi@thestar.ca
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