City hall’s policy finally under review following commemorative naming controversies

City staff have landed on a new naming policy for city streets, parks and other features. CTV London's Daryl Newcombe explains.

It’s taken years, but city hall is about to move forward with modernizing its commemorative naming policy for streets, parks, and buildings.

“It took almost two terms of council to get to this point. We’re almost rolling into a third term of council,” said Coun. Elizabeth Peloza.

In 2020, Peloza assisted a young girl who lived on Plantation Road bring a petition to council, asking for the street to be renamed because of the word’s historic connection to human slavery.

Subsequent years brought other controversies to the desks of city council.

In June 2022, fallen soldier Trooper Mark Wilson’s name was removed from the city website, a park, and a street after, “It was revealed he pleaded guilty at a court martial in 2004 to assaulting a woman at a base in Quebec.”

Then in November 2022, council voted to rename Paul Haggis Park after the disgraced Oscar-winning movie director was ordered to pay $10 million in damages to a woman who accused him of rape.

“A couple city parks will need renaming, [which] was already a direction of council,” explained Peloza. “And the other step is to go back to the community of Plantation Road and do some community consultation there.”

A staff report going to the Infrastructure and Corporate Services Committee recommends that the former Paul Haggis Park could be renamed for art or artistry, Trooper Mark Wilson Park and Trooper Mark Wilson Place could instead honour Vimy Ridge, and Plantation Road could be renamed for a species of tree.

Scott Mathers, Deputy City Manager of Housing and Community Growth, wrote in a statement to CTV News, “Since we last updated council, we’ve been engaging with several different equity denied communities and other municipalities about the city’s current commemorative naming policies. This engagement so far has been very helpful in informing the early stages of our review.”

In recent years, city hall was asked to consider reviewing other commemorations, including Dundas Place and Dundas Street, which were named after Henry Dundas, a British politician whose actions delayed the abolition of the slave trade.

However, Mathers confirms that the public consultation and policy review is forward looking and not intended to consider changing the problematic names of other municipal assets.

“The Commemorative Naming Review is not intended to make recommendations to change existing names and will instead create a process to guide future commemorative names of streets and city assets. The focus of this review is on new requests that will require council approval prior to implementing any commemorative naming,” he explained.

City hall has seven different policies that relate to commemorative naming:

• Street Naming – Streets of Honour
• Commemorative Street Naming Policy
• Commemorative Streets
• Dedication of Fire Stations
• Naming/Re-naming or Dedicating of Municipal Property
• Buildings and Park Elements Policy
• Corporate Sponsorship and Advertising Policy.

The review will strive to bring everything under a single policy and within the framework of the Ontario Human Rights Commission to support a more equitable and inclusive commemorative naming process going forward.

“It’s never a bad time to have a really good policy to help inform decision making going forward,” said Peloza. “It’s always going to be an awkward conversation to have [and] an uncomfortable conversation.”

The Infrastructure and Corporate Services Committee will consider the report on April 30.