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How new names, refreshed studies of history are inspiring change at Canada's universities – CBC.ca
Toronto Metropolitan University is the first Canadian post-secondary institution to change its name amid a wider re-examination of the full legacies left by the historic figures after whom so many of our schools, buildings and monuments are named.
As complicated portraits emerge about Canadian historical figures and their eponymous institutions, CBC News asked historians and a sociologist about how the post-secondary sector is grappling with this sensitive issue.
Why name changes are happening now
There is growing awareness and acknowledgement of the ugly parts of our history, including the systemic racism experienced by Black and Indigenous communities, as well as other marginalized groups. The discovery of unmarked graves at residential schools in various locations across Canada, in particular, prompted people to ask new and deeper questions about how we got to where we are.
Specifically at Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU), a group was tasked with re-examining the legacy of former namesake Egerton Ryerson. The 19th-century Methodist minister and public education advocate had a vision of compulsory, agricultural labour- and religious-based instruction for Indigenous students, held separately from non-Indigenous learners. His ideas went into the creation of the residential school system, and his actions as superintendent of education informed racially segregated schools in Canada. The TMU task force ultimately proposed 22 recommendations, including a name change for the school that went into effect April 26.
These kinds of conversations are a reminder that history — and the notion of legacy — evolves, said Barrington Walker, a history professor at Wilfrid Laurier University, adding that campuses are also a logical place for these kinds of discussions.
He noted how in the 1960s, when the post-secondary sector began to diversify, and more women, racialized people and people with disabilities began attending university, these students began demanding their institutions live up to higher ideals of equality and diversity.
Perhaps what has changed over time is that now “there are more places that are willing to take a look at their histories and to grapple with their histories,” Walker said.
“Universities are part of what’s going on in the larger society.”
The continued harm of historical names
Seeing institutions drop names of people whose past included inflicting harm on marginalized groups, shows that “people are listening and … they’re also acting on the calls to action from the [Truth and Reconciliation Commission],” said Cora Voyageur, a sociology professor at the University of Calgary and member of Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation.
“The trauma that has been experienced by Indigenous people, primarily First Nation people, is real,” Voyageur said. “Any of those racist tropes that we’ve had in the past, we have to rethink those and change our mindset.”
In spring 2019 for example, McGill University agreed to change the name of its varsity men’s sports teams — dropping a term widely recognized as offensive to Indigenous people — after a renewed campaign led by an Indigenous student athlete following years of complaints from earlier students about the discriminatory name.
Voyageur wants to see these conversations and history lessons continue across all levels of education. People and communities harmed by this history are still among us, and Canada’s future decision-makers are today’s students, she said.
“This is something that is a stain on Canadian society … Canada has to realize that we have a racist history,” she said, citing a wide range of harmful and discriminatory policies from those against First Nations to the Komagata Maru incident, the internment of Japanese-Canadians, the Chinese head tax and more.
The sociology professor says people sometimes react defensively to these types of conversations, saying they weren’t part of these decisions made a century ago.
“I’m not asking you to take responsibility for it,” she said. “I’m just asking you to learn it. You don’t have to like it, you don’t have to feel comfortable with it — you just have to acknowledge that this is part of our history.”
Dalhousie University dug into its history, but didn’t change its name. Why not?
In 2019, a panel concluded its exploration into Dalhousie University’s history of racism, links to the transatlantic slave system and what historian Isaac Saney described as the “problematic history” of the Halifax school’s founder, the former Nova Scotia lieutenant governor who had profited from the sugar, molasses and rum trade in the early 19th century. The final report called for an official apology, a provincial memorial and other reparations, but no name change.
Changing the name was indeed discussed but wasn’t part of the official mandate, according to Dalhousie historian Saney, a member of the panel. Instead, the focus was on conducting a historical evaluation “but also bringing about recommendations that could lead to substantive change in [the university’s] relationship with this legacy — and with the African Nova Scotian community,” he explained.
“We wanted to go beyond symbolic change, and we really wanted to have a series of concrete recommendations that would not only, in a sense, push the university forward but bring about the kind of meaningful change you want to have.”
He pointed to solid changes in place, such as recruiting more Black faculty and developing the first Black and African Diaspora Studies major at a Canadian university — a development committee on which he’s now serving as chair.
“Nobody is saying that Lord Dalhousie should be erased from history. People are saying he should be placed in the proper historical context,” Saney noted. “When we do these things, we’re signalling what kind of society we would like to create: a more just, more equitable society.”
Likewise, TMU also said it would be following up its name change with more action.
“It’s an ongoing work that just started, but it’s a long journey,” said TMU president Mohamed Lachemi.
Are other schools re-examining their namesakes?
These conversations are indeed happening at many institutions. Some advocates continue to push for more recognition of a namesake’s complicated history, including at Quebec’s McGill University. Other institutions have renamed individual buildings, like at Ontario’s University of Windsor and Queen’s University.
Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ont., has created the Laurier Legacy Project to revisit the history of Canada’s seventh prime minister, who helped propel Canada to wealth and prominence on the world stage while also creating discriminatory immigration policies against Chinese, Japanese, Indian and African American people.
“In many ways the historical record hasn’t been mined nearly as fully as it should be,” said Walker, who serves as the school’s associate vice-president of equity, diversity and inclusion as well as a history professor.
“There’s also a perception that once people have written about the past, they’ve written it and it’s been done, but different historians will bring different questions to even historical records that seem very familiar to people. They’ll bring different eyes, different lived experiences.”
The project won’t avoid unearthing ugly details, Walker said. The hope is to grapple with those elements, inspire deep reflection and develop best practices on making the university more diverse and open to groups who haven’t traditionally had access to post-secondary education.
“Aside from my historian’s hat, that’s the point of doing this work: to show that we can live up to the best version of ourselves.”
I’m an alumnus of what’s now TMU. Do I get new grad documents?
Alumni should note that its legal name remains Ryerson University until an amendment to Ontario’s Ryerson University Act is passed. With a provincial election imminent, that part of the change is on hold.
“Until that [change] takes place, we will continue to issue all legal documents (including parchments at convocation) with the old name, Ryerson University,” Lachemi said. “We will communicate more details to our alumni about how to get your documents with the new name in the future.”
For more stories about the experiences of Black Canadians — from anti-Black racism to success stories within the Black community — check out Being Black in Canada, a CBC project Black Canadians can be proud of. You can read more stories here.
Drivers in Eastern Canada could see big increases in gas prices because of various factors, especially the higher cost of the summer blend, industry analysts say.
Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at fuel savings website GasBuddy in Chicago, predicts a big gas hike for the eastern portions of Canada including Ontario, Quebec, Newfoundland and Labrador, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia over the next several days, while some areas in the Maritimes have already seen the increases.
“Unfortunately, for … really a third of Canada, we’re likely to see a big jump in what (motorists) are seeing at the pump,” he said in a video interview with CTVNews.ca. “Gas prices could rise in excess of 10 cents a litre. All of that having to do with yesterday’s switchover to summer gasoline.”
Gas prices may continue to increase for the next week or two, De Haan said. “But I think the end is near for the seasonal increases and we should start to see prices decreasing potentially by May (long weekend).”
Dan McTeague, president of Canadians for Affordable Energy, also forecasts gas price hikes.
Ontario and Quebec will see a 14-cent-per-litre increase overnight Thursday, he said on Wednesday. He predicts the price per litre will rise to $1.79 in cities across Ontario, the highest since Aug. 2, 2022. In Quebec, he expects the price per litre will increase to $1.88.
McTeague attributes this week’s increase to the higher cost of summer blended gasoline.
De Haan, meanwhile, observed the following changes in prices across Canada compared to a week ago:
- Prices in Saskatchewan are flat;
- Manitoba prices are up about a half a penny per litre;
- Alberta is down seven-tenths of a penny per litre;
- P.E.I. is up about 1.2 cents a litre;
- B.C. is up about 2.5 cents a litre;
- Nova Scotia is up three cents a litre;
- Quebec is up 3.5 cents a litre;
- Ontario is up 4.5 cents a litre;
- New Brunswick is up five cents a litre;
- Newfoundland is up seven cents a litre.
Factors behind spikes
“Some gas stations have already raised their price, in essence, but some others may not for the next day or two,” De Haan said. “So over the next several days, the averages will continue to rise as more stations raise their price. … Most of the increase is happening right now in the eastern portions of Canada.”
The summer gas switch will have “just a one-time impact” on gas prices, De Haan said.
More drivers are on the road, creating rising demand for gas as temperatures warm up, and refiners are wrapping up maintenance ahead of the start of the summer driving season. “While they do that maintenance, they’re generally not able to supply as much gasoline into the market,” De Haan explained.
Despite tensions between Iran and Israel, the recent attack has had “little impact” on the price of oil, De Haan said.
“Last week, oil prices did climb to their highest level (in) six months as Iran suggested it was going to attack Israel,” he said. “Now that those attacks have happened and they largely have been unsuccessful, the price of oil is actually declining.”
Third major spike in 2024
Michael Manjuris, professor and chair of global management studies at Toronto Metropolitan University, said the new gas price increase would be the third major spike across Canada since the start of the year.
One factor is the price of crude oil worldwide has risen 15 per cent since Jan. 1, Manjuris said.
The federal carbon tax increase of about 3.3 cents per litre on April 1 is also another reason for the big jolts in gas prices, he added.
Although the switch to summer blend fuels typically happens every year, Manjuris said, it will be more painful economically because it’s on top of the two other major increases this year. “This increase now will cause the overall price of gasoline to be very high,” he said in a video interview with CTVNews.ca. “We haven’t seen these kinds of prices since 2022.”
Manjuris believes gas prices will continue to rise through the summer as global demand for oil begins to grow. “That’s because we’re seeing increased economic activity in China, in the United States and in Europe,” he explained. “When those things all come together, price of crude oil starts to go up. … So I’m predicting that because of demand increasing, price of gasoline in Canada will also go up in the summer months. I’m going to suggest three to five cents a litre will be the peak before it starts to come back down.”
Regional differences
The West Coast and Prairies won’t have any gas price hikes coming soon because they already transitioned to summer gasoline, De Haan said. “So this is something associated with the switchover, which happens last in the eastern parts of Canada,” he explained.
In addition, he said regions have “subtle differences” in their supplies of gasoline.
“Supplies of winter gasoline in the eastern portions of Canada was rather lavish and so discounts were significant,” he said. “But now that the eastern part of Canada is rolling over to relatively tight supplies of summer gasoline, this is something much more impactful. That is other areas of Canada did roll over to summer gasoline, but they did not have necessarily the big discounts that would associate with the big price swing that we’re seeing.”
With files from CP24.com Journalist Codi Wilson
News
For its next trick, Ottawa must unload the $34B Trans Mountain pipeline. It won't be easy – CBC.ca
In her budget speech to the House of Commons on Tuesday, Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland took a moment to celebrate the finishing touch on expansion of the Trans Mountain oil pipeline.
The controversial project has been plagued by delays and massive cost overruns, but Freeland instead focused on its completion, highlighting the: “talented tradespeople and the brilliant engineers who, last Thursday, made the final weld, known as the golden weld, on a great national project.”
For all the difficulties with developing and building TMX, Freeland still faces another major hurdle that is sure to prove contentious — choosing when to sell it, who gets to buy it, and for how much.
An upcoming election and more than $34 billion in construction costs are raising the stakes.
Ottawa bought the project when it was on the verge of falling apart — before there was ever a shovel in the ground — in the face of legal, political and regulatory challenges.
The federal government has long vowed to sell the project (including at least a partial ownership stake to Indigenous groups) once construction was complete. That milestone has now been reached.
But the move will no doubt open a Pandora’s box, says Daniel Béland, the director of the McGill University Institute for the Study of Canada and a professor in the department of political science.
He says any potential deal will face intense scrutiny considering the election is due before the fall of 2025 and, most notably, because the actual sale price is expected to be far lower than the cost to actually build the pipeline.
“They were in a hot spot when they bought it back in 2018. They are still in a hot spot,” said Béland.
How the governing Liberals handle Trans Mountain could impact how voters view the Liberal party’s handling of financial, economic, Indigenous, and environmental issues.
“There’s risk either way. If you sell it really fast, but you sell it at the price that is considered to be quite low, then you might be accused of just getting rid of it for political reasons but not having the interest of taxpayers in mind,” he said.
“But, if you wait and you don’t sell it, then you might be accused of being basically permanently involved or trying to be permanently involved in that sector of the economy in a way that many people, even people who are more conservative, may find inappropriate.”
Deep discount
There has always been interest in buying it, including from Stephen Mason, the managing director of Project Reconciliation, a Calgary-based organization which aims to use a potential ownership stake to benefit Indigenous communities.
Nearly five years ago, Mason walked into then-federal finance minister Bill Morneau’s office in Ottawa and made an offer to purchase Trans Mountain before construction had even begun on its expansion, which will transport more oil from Alberta to the British Columbia coast.
Morneau was interested, he says, but the project wasn’t for sale until the new pipeline was built.
Much has changed since that meeting in July 2019, including the ballooning cost of Trans Mountain to more than $34 billion (compared to an original estimate of about $7.3 billion) and numerous delays in construction.
Mason is still pursuing ownership. He won’t discuss numbers, but suspects Trans Mountain is worth far less than $34 billion.
“My intuition is telling me that it’s going to be a fairly significant writedown,” he said. “I’m not sure the Liberal government wants to get into a public recognition of what the writedown is ahead of the election, but that is just … my speculation.”
New tolls
A critical factor in the timing and price of a potential sale is a dispute over how much oil companies will have to pay to actually use the new pipeline.
Several large oil producers signed long-term contracts to use 80 per cent of the pipeline. However, as construction costs have soared, so too have the tolls that companies will have to pay.
Those companies have balked at the higher rates arguing they shouldn’t have to bear the “extreme magnitude” of construction overruns. The Canada Energy Regulator has scheduled a hearing for September, at the earliest, to resolve the issue.
For now, the regulator has set an interim toll of $11.46 for every barrel of oil moved down the line. That price includes a fixed amount of $10.88 and a variable portion of $0.58. The fixed amount is nearly double what Trans Mountain estimated it would be in 2017.
“There’s no way that you can have tolls high enough on TMX to cover a $34 billion budget,” said Rory Johnston, an energy researcher and founder of the Commodity Context newsletter, who describes the cost overruns on the project compared to the original estimates as “gigantic.”
Lessons could be learned on how the Trans Mountain expansion pipeline was developed and built, says company CFO Mark Maki.
He doesn’t expect the final tolls to be much higher than the interim amount because, otherwise, the pipeline could become too expensive for oil companies to want to use. Based on the interim tolls, Johnston expects the federal government to likely only recover about half of the money it spent to buy and build Trans Mountain.
“There’s no way anyone would pay the full cost of the pipeline because the tolls don’t support it. You’re going to need to discount it. You’re going to need to take a haircut of at least 50 per cent of this pipeline,” he said.
The federal government currently owns the original Trans Mountain pipeline, built in 1953, the now-completed expansion and related facilities including storage tanks and an export terminal.
Potential buyers
The federal government has looked at offering an equity stake to the more than 120 Western Canadian Indigenous communities whose lands are located along the pipeline route, while finding a different buyer to be the majority owner.
Besides Project Reconciliation, other potential buyers include a partnership between the Western Indigenous Pipeline Group (WIPG) and Pembina Pipelines.
The group has the support from about 40 Indigenous communities and hopes to purchase the project within the next year, said Michael Lebourdais, an WIPG director and chief of Whispering Pines/Clinton Indian Band, located near Kamloops, B.C.
Those communities have to live with the environmental risk of a spill, so they should benefit financially from the pipeline, he says.
Pension funds and other institutions could pursue ownership too.
“There will be buyers. I’m not sure that they’ll be willing to pay the full cost of construction but I think there’ll be buyers for sure,” said Jackie Forrest, executive director of the ARC Energy Research Institute.
The federal government will likely highlight the overall economic benefits of the new pipeline and the expected role of Indigenous communities in ownership, experts say, as a way to defend against criticism if the eventual sale price is low.
In her Tuesday speech, Freeland was already promoting the pipeline’s expected financial boost by highlighting the Bank of Canada’s recent estimate that the new Trans Mountain expansion will add one-quarter of a percentage point to Canada’s GDP in the second quarter.
An interprovincial investigation into an “emergency grandparents scam” that targeted seniors across Canada has led to the arrest of 14 suspects, Ontario Provincial Police say.
Details of the investigation, dubbed Project Sharp, were announced at a news conference in Scarborough on Thursday morning.
Police said 56 charges have been laid against the suspects, who were all arrested in the Montreal area.
According to police, since January, investigators identified 126 victims who were defrauded out of a total of $739,000. Fifteen of those victims were defrauded on multiple occasions, police said, resulting in the loss of an additional $200,000.
The victims, who range in age from 46 to 95, were targeted based on the fact that they had landline telephones, police said. While people across the country were defrauded, police said, the majority resided in Ontario.
Police said four of the 14 arrested in the fraud remain in custody while the other 10 have been released on bail. The charges they face include involvement in organized crime groups, extortion, impersonating a police officer, and fraud, police said.
OPP Det.-Insp. Sean Chatland told reporters Thursday that the police service began looking into an “organized crime group” believed to be involved in fraud during an intelligence probe in September 2022.
By February 2023, Chatland said the probe was formalized into an OPP-led joint forces investigation involving police services in both Ontario and Quebec.
“This organized crime group demonstrated a deliberate and methodical approach in exploiting victims. They operated out of Ontario and Quebec, utilizing emergency grandparents scams on victims across Canada,” Chatland said.
“They would impersonate police officers, judges, lawyers, and loved ones, preying on grandparents who believed they were trying to help family members in trouble.”
He said in many cases, the suspects utilized “money mules” or couriers to collect large sums of money from the victims.
This is a breaking news story. More details to come.
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