Reconciliation Bridge naming ceremony finally scheduled

More than a year after city council voted to change the name of a century-old downtown bridge, an official renaming ceremony will finally christen Reconciliation Bridge.

Council voted in January 2017 to drop the span’s original name, Langevin Bridge, following a social media campaign urging elected officials to remove the moniker honouring Hector-Louis Langevin over his connection to the residential schools system.

The bridge, which spans the Bow River between 4th Avenue S. and Memorial Drive, will host an official renaming event May 26 at 1 p.m. on the Memorial Drive side.

“We finally managed to get many different stakeholders together to make this gesture of reconciliation on behalf of the citizens of Calgary and I’m really happy about it,” Mayor Naheed Nenshi said Wednesday.

The event will begin with a prayer circle, followed by speeches from the mayor and others.

The event has taken 16 months to organize following the vote to renamethebridge.

“It’s about reconciliation and you want to do that right the first time. It’s not something that needs to be rushed through,” said Harold Horsefall, an issues strategist in the city’s Indigenous portfolio.

He said the organization process was done with great care to ensure all voices were heard.

Horsefall added the city also didn’t want to make the event a political statement during the municipal election.

Nenshi said an attempt was made to schedule an event last June around Indigenous Awareness Week, but the timing “didn’t work out”; subsequent attempts to reschedule were sidelined by the municipal election and a desire to wait until temperatures warmed before holding the outdoor event, Nenshi said.

“This is all about respect and it’s all about working with people to do what’s right for them. So we really wanted to make sure that we were involving all the stakeholders in a way that was deeply respectful of tradition and knowledge and background.”

A Father of Confederation, Langevin was also an architect of Canada’s residential schools system that was condemned in the national Truth and Reconciliation Report for widespread abuses on Indigenous children and acts of “cultural genocide.”

“It’s important to acknowledge that reconciliation needs to occur,” said Horsefall.

Calgarians are invited to join territorial elders for ceremonial blessings that will begin on the north side of the bridge, according tothecity.

The bridge will be closed to traffic starting at 11:30 a.m.

The event on May 26 will see only temporary signage installed on the bridge recognizing the new name. The temporary signs are due to refurbishment work. Signage on the bridge has been a contentious issue forthecity.

Postmedia reported earlier this year that the mayor ordered municipal staff to take down signs erected in the immediate wake of the vote approving the name change, in order to wait for a formal ceremony.

Roads staff had apparently jumped the gun by replacing the old green-and-white signs.

“I was touched by their beautiful gesture,” Nenshi tweeted last summer. “Then I made them take it down.”