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5 | W aterloo C hronicle | T hursday,July 9,2020 w aterloochronicle.ca 85 BRIDGEPORT RD. E. WATERLOO (Across from the Bridgeport Rd. Plaza) SINCE 1971 519-893-8118 FURNITURE & MATTRESSES SINCE 1971 Comfort Plus SINCE 1971 FURNITURE & MATTRESSES Comfort Plus SINCE 1971 FURNITURE & MATTRESSES 85 WE HAVE RE-OPENED By Appointment Only WE HAVE RE-OPENED BY APPOINTMENT ONLY PLEASE CALL 519-893-8118 FOR DETAILS MON.,TUES.,WED. 10AM - 6 PM THURS.& FRI. 10AM - 6 PM SATURDAY 9AM - 5 PM SUNDAY 12 PM - 4 PM P. 519-886-1550 TTY. 1-866-786-3941 waterloo.ca NAMING OF PRIVATE ROAD IN THE CITY OF WATERLOO AS 'SOLSTICE WAY' TAKE NOTICE that, pursuant to Section 48 of the Municipal Act 2001, R.S.O. 2001 c.25 as amended, that the Council of The Corporation of the City of Waterloo is proposing to pass a by-law to name an existing private road that provides access from University Avenue East to the RIM Park (Eastbridge) Sports Fields and the lands known municipally as 2050 University Avenue East as "Solstice Way". Hospice of Waterloo Region is constructing a hospice palliative care centre at 2050 University Avenue East and has requested that the existing private road to its property be named "Solstice Way". The private road is owned by the City of Waterloo. At a meeting to be held electronically on July 13, 2020, Council will hear any person who wishes to speak to this private road naming and who has registered as a delegation with the City Clerk's Office at 519-747-8549 no later than 10:00 a.m. on Monday, July 13, 2020. Dated this 30th day of June, 2020. Olga Smith, City Clerk City of Waterloo 100 Regina Street South Waterloo, ON N2J 4A8 Discussions around re- naming Sir John A. Mac- donald school in Waterloo are nothing new. In fact, it was only three short years ago that the El- ementary Teachers' Feder- ation of Ontario (ETFO) put forward a motion ask- ing all school boards in the province to rename any schools named after Cana- da's first prime minister. To date, Waterloo's school name remains un- changed, though it's affec- tionately referred to around here as "S-jam." Interestingly, since ET- FO brought forward that motion in 2017, we have seen change affected. In early 2018, the owner of what was once "Sir John's Public House" -- a popular pub in Kingston -- renamed his bar simply "Public House." Not long after, the city of Victoria removed a statue of Sir John A. Macdonald from the steps of its city hall. Fast forward to the sum- mer of 2020, and while Mac- donald's name remains on our Waterloo high school, a statue of the prime minister has been the subject of re- peated vandalism in Baden. And that's brought back calls for a renewed look at the impact of a name. "We've been honouring privileged white men for decades and decades and decades, and it isn't really needed anymore," said Wa- terloo Mayor Dave Jawor- sky. "It's a lesson for all of us that what sounded good at the time doesn't sound so good now, doesn't stand the test of time." Jaworsky points out the tradition of naming streets and buildings after people is flawed because "you have to be pretty clear they're a good person" before bestowing the name. Indeed, Macdon- ald's is not the only name with which we can find fault. Sir Wilfrid Laurier, Canada's seventh prime minister, once signed an or- der-in-council banning Black immigration while Robert Borden, our eighth prime minister, won the 1911 election under the slo- gan "A White Canada." The names Laurier and Borden today grace not on- ly schools (including Wa- terloo's Wilfrid Laurier University) but their imag- es are also on Canadian currency, the five and 100- dollar bills, respectively. "We're honouring some- body, and it was the thing to do at the time and it's come back to bite us," Ja- worsky believes. "It's a les- son to us that we should look to be naming things af- ter trees and things that we value, the environment, our Indigenous past." While Jaworsky is cer- tainly not alone in his sen- timents, support for the idea of changing school names and removing stat- ues is far from unanimous. Consider the position of Sen. Murray Sinclair, the former chief commissioner of the Truth and Reconcili- ation Commission. "The problem I have with the overall approach to tearing down statues and buildings is that it is counterproductive to ... reconciliation because it almost smacks of revenge or smacks of acts of anger," Sinclair says. "But in real- ity, what we are trying to do, is we are trying to cre- ate more balance in the re- lationship." Some of that balance can be found in our classrooms, and a curriculum that fear- lessly approaches history to teach us more about Mac- donald's legacy than merely his role in uniting Canada and becoming its first prime minister. Maybe our focus needs to be on what's happening inside our school buildings rather than on the names on the outside. Waterloo Chronicle columnist Mike Farwell is a broadcaster, MC and advocate. Follow him on Twitter @farwell_WR. SHOULD LOCAL SCHOOL BE RENAMED? OPINION TURN FOCUS TO WHAT'S BEING TAUGHT IN SCHOOL, WRITES MIKE FARWELL MIKE FARWELL Column