By Cecilia Nasmith
It happened just like that – a vote at Cobourg council this week, and Langevin Pier was stripped of its name because it honours Sir Hector-Louis Langevin.
The move was the request of Meghan Sheffield, who identified the Father of Confederation as a proponent and supporter of residential schools.
Sheffield reminded council that she had made this request before in 2017, along with Alderville First Nation Chief Jim Bob Marsden and Nicole Beatty (before she was elected to council).
The request she made this week came on a night when Mayor John Henderson had started the council meeting with a moment of reflection on the news of 215 children who lost their lives at the Kamloops Indian Residential School, and the town's lowering of the flags in their memory was still in force.
This kind of renaming is being done in other communities, Sheffield said, “in the interests of a more honest version of Canadian history that does not celebrate these individuals.”
The so-called Langevin Pier refers to the west pier on Cobourg's waterfront and is better known as the west headland. Sheffield asked that its renaming be done in partnership and consultation with the local Indigenous community.
Councillor Nicole Beatty's motion was to remove the name immediately, and to direct the town's Accessibility Co-ordinator to investigate renaming options with the local Indigenous community.
Beatty commented that the name was not widely used and did not resonate with the local community.
“I have never seen any signage or really anything on maps referring to this pier as Langevin Pier,” Deputy Mayor Suzanne Seguin agreed.
Henderson said that, in his 36 years in Cobourg, he also had seen no such signage.
Later in the meeting, the mayor extended his thanks for her presentation.
“I think that is critical, especially in the most recent circumstances before all of us within Canada.”
