this post was submitted on 24 Aug 2023
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Three former Toronto mayors are expressing their opposition to changing the name of one of the city’s most well-known streets.

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[–] Dearche@lemmy.ca 16 points 1 year ago (1 children)

What a waste of time. Who cares about the name of a street. People focus so much time, energy, and money (not to mention public time energy and money) on things that don't matter when we have real issues that need to be dealt with, and quickly.

How about getting some of the current transit projects fixed up so that they actually finish during our lifetimes? Or fix the housing crisis? Or deal with all the empty office space? This city has countless problems, many from neglect over the decades, and people think that changing the name of a damn street is more important.

People need an ego check.

[–] cheery_coffee@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The problems you listed are hard, but like painting a bike shed, everyone has an opinion on changing the street name.

[–] Dearche@lemmy.ca 4 points 1 year ago

They are hard, but hard problems are the ones that need addressing. Easy problems tend to have little to no effect, regardless of if they're solved or not. And solving this problem will have exactly zero impact beyond stroking a few egos (which is something I consider a bad thing so thus should be avoided).

[–] Whitebrow@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Love how this is how my tax dollars are being used.

Not working towards solutions for actual problems, but instead how to re-label a street name.

[–] EhForumUser@lemmy.ca 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Remember when the city of Berlin, in an effort to disassociate itself from the horrors seen in Germany, changed its name to Kitchener – after Lord Kitchener, inventor of concentration camps...?

Looking forward to seeing what bad things the new name is associated with.

[–] AstralPath@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 year ago

Link for anyone interested in learning about Kitchener's atrocious behaviour. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Boer_War_concentration_camps

[–] sik0fewl@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago

Baby steps.

[–] sik0fewl@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)
[–] EhForumUser@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

"Normally we give friends of the council a lot more! This is a good deal." – Toronto city council, probably.

[–] zefiax@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

Spend that 8.6m on homeless shelters instead. Or fixing pot holes.

[–] zephyreks@lemmy.ca 6 points 1 year ago

Who the fuck cares? What a waste of taxpayer money.

[–] EhForumUser@lemmy.ca 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Melanie Newton, the co-chair of the city council advisory committee looking at the renaming issue, has studied Dundas’s legacy and said that as Britain was weighing abolition, he intervened and introduced a motion for ‘gradual abolition.’

In other words, the government of the time was mixed about abolition, and instead of letting it die on the floor to those who were opposed, he proposed a gradual system to try and win more abolition support – to ensure that something happened instead of the otherwise certainty of nothing?

What a horrible monster. Get that name changed at once!

[–] psvrh@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 year ago

Yeah, much as I agree that there's a good reason for this, it's really not the best optics to do this right now, and I really do wonder if the reason it's even being floated is a) to get people to engage on a frivolous issue instead of real ones, and/or b) for the media to generate rage-clicks.

[–] corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca 0 points 1 year ago

Rename it. That'll show ...

Well, I'm not sure. Sticks and stones, I guess.