The President of the Champlain Society, Patrice Dutil, wrote an editorial for the Toronto Star outlining why we should rename one of our main streets in Toronto after our founding Prime Minister Sir John A. Macdonald, in celebration of the bicentennial of his birth. Patrice argues that Avenue Road is the perfect candidate for this re-naming:
“Avenue Road should be renamed Sir John A. Macdonald Avenue. It’s an important artery, a statue of Sir John A. stands nearby (at the foot of Queen’s Park), and millions of travellers along Highway 401 would see it. The current name serves no historical or cultural purpose.”
He goes on to argue that although there are plenty of side streets with the Macdonald name, none of them specify that they are referring to Sir John A., and there is no major artery named after the man in our largest city and one time home of Macdonald.
You can read the rest of the editorial here, and for supplementary reading, you can read this article from Leaders and Legacies, where they interviewed Patrice on the same subject.
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