Potential of a name change

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 09/07/2010 (5031 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The normally peaceful West Coast has been in a bit of an uproar lately over a possible name change. Squamish First Nation leaders recently proposed Vancouver’s beloved Stanley Park be renamed XwayXway, which, I learned, is pronounced k-why k-way.

A couple of summers back, my family and I took a trip to B.C. and ended up strolling around Stanley Park for an afternoon. It’s a huge, sweeping park, and the totem poles are really cool. But what I found really interesting is what my unofficial tour guide told me about the history of Stanley Park.

I was pretty ignorant about B.C. history, so it came as a surprise that several groups of aboriginal people lived on that land long before it was designated Stanley Park in 1888. People built their longhouses on that land, lived in villages, celebrated, gathered food and raised families there for countless generations.

One of those villages on what is now called Stanley Park was called — you guessed it — XwayXway, which means Place of the Masks.

But a public outcry over the name-change idea shows there’s a lot of fear in the hearts of most B.C. residents. Around here we love using traditional names; after all, we are Winnipeg or Muddy Water.

It’s like some British Columbians are worried about an indigenous takeover of some sort. Or maybe it has more to do with the real issue behind the masks.

You see, most B.C. First Nations never signed treaties back when many of us did, but are still going through negotiations today. And it’s more than likely going to take many more years to get it right. That means there’s some valuable land in B.C. that’s been developed and is leased out by First Nations and the feds, and still many treaties have yet to be completed.

In fact, three different tribes have claims to the Stanley Park land.

So this public outrage is about more than just a name change, it’s about a shift in power. Nobody wants to give up claim of a treasured landmark to indigenous people. Those battles are better left for years in the courts, I guess.

To agree to change Stanley Park’s name back to a traditional one would be to accept the deep historical ties this aboriginal community has to it. It also means acknowledging the pre-Canadian history of the land, which isn’t as much a part of common knowledge as most of us would hope.

Canada’s history didn’t start in 1867. It had a history of being inhabited by aboriginal peoples for thousands of years. Just think how fascinating this new world of prosperity, culture and trade called Canada — an aboriginal word, too — must have been to the explorers who discovered it.

The province doesn’t own Stanley Park but leases it from the federal government. The federal government had the final say about the name change and shot down the idea. Case closed?

For now, I guess. But something troubling came out of this recent commotion.

A recent Angus Reid poll found two in five Canadians (43 per cent) believe Canada has gone too far in accommodating aboriginal peoples.

I think it’s less about going too far and more about righting historical wrongs where aboriginal people got a raw deal.

If all Canadians understood more about Canadian history in general, they wouldn’t be so quick to bristle at the thought of a provincial park reclaiming part of its historical name. Heck, it might even become a benefit by bringing in more tourist bucks.

Maybe the worry is that renaming Stanley Park to its traditional name would be like opening the door to land negotiations. And if that’s the biggest fear for everyone, then it just doesn’t make sense either.

We live in a time when the aboriginal population is booming, becoming more educated and gradually casting off social ills that have plagued us for decades. Settling land claims instead of stalling them could mean prosperity for all Canadians.

Land claims shouldn’t mean fear but hope for the future.

Shouldn’t First Nations be given back the means to be self-sufficient instead of being reliant on the outdated system of running things that barely keeps people afloat?

Colleen Simard is a Winnipeg writer.