Just change the name
Mi’kmaq elder says there’s an easy way to resolve the Cornwallis controversy
Mi’kmaq elder Dan Paul says Halifax could solve the Cornwallis controversy before Natal Day.
The process to name or rename features such as buildings, streets, municipal parks and statues is typically the responsibility of city and regional governments.
“They could change the name the way other street names have been changed,” Paul said in a telephone interview.
It is a straightforward, expedient process and they can just make a decision, he said. Council meets Aug. 1, a few days before the Natal Day weekend.
Instead, Halifax Regional Council voted in April to create an expert panel to examine and make recommendations on the issue of commemorating Cornwallis on Halifax Regional Municipality properties that bear his name.
Paul said he expects to be invited to sit on the committee “even though I don’t think it’s necessary to have a committee recommendation in order to do the right thing.”
The Mi’kmaq want Cornwallis’s name expunged from the city because of a 1749 bounty on scalps that included women and children as well as men, Paul said.
Cornwallis’ name is on roads and schools, parks and waterways across the province. On Natal Day in 1924, Halifax celebrated the city’s naval and British history with a re-enactment of Cornwallis’ 1749 landing. A crowd of 10,000 turned out to “welcome” the city’s founder.
This month protesters disrupted a council meeting to demand Cornwallis’ statue be removed from a South End park before Mi’kmaq History Month in October if there is to be reconciliation. Mayor Mike Savage said he
doesn’t think that’s possible.
Earlier, on Canada Day, a demonstration and Indigenous ceremony held at the statue in Cornwallis Park became national news after protesters and five members of the Proud Boys “western chauvinist” group got into an on-camera argument.
Just over a week ago, the city chose to cover the statue with a black shroud for a planned followup protest.
That day the mayor predicted changing the park’s name and removing the statue, if it happened, would take months.
A recent survey by Corporate Research Associates suggests that the majority of Haligonians believe Edward Cornwallis’ name should remain on public parks, buildings and street signs.
In 2011, the Halifax Regional School Board voted unanimously to rename Cornwallis Junior High, changing it to Halifax Central Junior High School. The move
was supported by local historians.
Still, the name pops up all across the province, including on a former military base, CFB Cornwallis in the Annapolis Basin, which is now a residential community called Cornwallis Park.
Historians fear renaming these sites will erase Nova Scotia’s heritage.
Len Canfield of the Halifax Military Preservation Society said in a telephone interview that the society will not object to the renaming of Cornwallis Park to “Freedom or Friendship Park.”
However, the society strenuously opposes destroying the statue. It should be moved to a museum with an appropriate and historically accurate plaque, Canfield said.
He also said there is archival evidence of Indigenous fighters taking the scalps of settlers, including women.
Paul said he doubts the authenticity of the archival records.