One of the leaders pushing for change says it ends a ‘truly painful’ reminder
CBC News: The National Capital Commission (NCC) board of directors voted Thursday to rename the Sir John A. Macdonald Parkway as Kichi Zībī Mīkan. The Ottawa River Parkway was renamed in 2012 after Canada’s first prime minister, who oversaw the centralization and expansion of the country’s residential school system.
Indigenous people have called for a new name for years. Ottawa city councillors along the roadway joined them in 2021 and in January of this year, the NCC’s board voted to change the name. Earlier this month, its CEO said the new name was chosen after consulting Algonquin people.
Mīkan, pronounced MEE-khan, is an Algonquin word meaning road or path. Kichi Zībī means great river and is the Algonquin name for what would later be called the Ottawa River. The name change is effective immediately, according to NCC media relations. Signs will be changed and staff told board members Thursday the name will be officially unveiled at an event on Sept. 30, the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation.
Albert Dumont, an Algonquin spiritual advisor from Kitigan Zibi Anishinābeg First Nation north of Ottawa, has been one of the leading advocates for changing the name and organized a protest about it on Sept. 30 last year.
He said earlier this week it’s going to feel good hearing the replacement. “My heart will be glad every time,” he told the CBC’s Hallie Cotnam. “I’ve got to say it was truly painful to hear it so much everyday; how the road conditions are, and traffic in the morning.”
Reaction to Kichi Zībī Mīkan as the proposed new name for the Sir John A MacDonald parkway
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The Ottawa area is unceded Algonquin territory and the river the parkway runs along is integral to Algonquin life. “I heard a woman from Manitoba say one time that the Oldman River in Manitoba was as much of her identity as the blood in her veins,” Dumont said. “That’s how the Algonquins feel about this river here. It really is.”
Macdonald’s government enforced policies that starved Indigenous people to force them from their land and outlawed their ceremonies. It also centralized and expanded a residential school system that took generations of children from their families and tried to wipe out their cultures. There was widespread abuse and thousands of children were killed, with trauma still being felt today.
“Understand what Macdonald wanted to do to the Indigenous peoples: he wanted them to disappear and his laws and policies are clear on that,” Dumont said. “He is guilty of genocide. People need to think about that and process it.”
Dumont said there are people who disagree with changing the name. “You can’t compare a name disappearing from a roadway to him doing everything he possibly could to make a people disappear.”
Dumont said he’d like to see Algonquin leaders at the renaming ceremony in September, and a feast included. “Just to be able to say something good has happened and we’re happy about it and it was the right thing to do.”
With files from Hallie Cotnam and Elyse Skura