Latest / Plausibly Live - The Dave Bowman Show Podcast / Canadian Lakes... and Terrorists

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Canadian Lakes... and Terrorists · Plausibly Live - The Dave Bowman Show Podcast

• 0:26
  There is something strange happening in Canada.
• 0:29
  Apparently, some names are sacred vessels of history, while
• 0:33
  others can be discarded whenever they become politically
• 0:39
  inconvenient. For years, the Canadian
• 0:41
  government and their institutions have been renaming
• 0:45
  things in the name of reconciliation and reconsidering
• 0:49
  history. Young Dundas Square became
• 0:52
  Sankofa Square, Ryerson University became Toronto
• 0:56
  Metropolitan University in Montreal, Amherst Street became
• 1:01
  Atatenkan St. and in Halifax, Cornwallis St. became Nora
• 1:05
  Bernard St. The Langvan Block in Ottawa
• 1:09
  became the office of the Prime Minister and the Privy Council.
• 1:13
  Statues of John A McDonald, Canada's first Prime Minister,
• 1:17
  were removed from public display in Victoria, Regina, Kingston
• 1:21
  and Charlottetown. Across the country, schools,
• 1:24
  parks and public buildings received new names because the
• 1:27
  old ones were judged to be, you know, unacceptable by modern
• 1:31
  standards. The explanation was always the
• 1:34
  same. Names communicate values.
• 1:39
  Names tell us who society chooses to honor.
• 1:42
  Changing a name does not erase history, they said.
• 1:45
  They assured themselves history remains in the books, the
• 1:49
  museums, even when a familiar name disappears from the public
• 1:53
  square. All right.
• 1:55
  That's the principle. Then the president of the United
• 1:59
  States, Donald Trump, directed the United States government to
• 2:02
  call Lake Ontario Lake America. And now, suddenly, Canadian
• 2:07
  leaders discover that names carry centuries of history.
• 2:11
  Lake Ontario, they protested, received its name long before
• 2:14
  Canada or even the United States existed.
• 2:16
  An American president can't simply take out his Sharpie and
• 2:20
  just replace that. Now, look, legally they're
• 2:24
  correct. Trump can determine what the
• 2:27
  American federal agencies call the lake, but he can't compel
• 2:30
  Canada to use the new name. But the cultural argument is
• 2:34
  harder to swallow. After years of telling Canadians
• 2:37
  that historical names may be changed when contemporary values
• 2:40
  demanded, Canada has now insisted that historical names
• 2:44
  must be protected. At almost the same moment, the
• 2:48
  CBC reportedly instructed its journalists not to describe the
• 2:53
  September 11th attacks as, quote, terrorist attacks, UN
• 2:57
  quote. Instead, its guidance says to
• 3:00
  say that the hijacking, that they were hijackings that led to
• 3:04
  passenger jet crashes in Washington, PA and Manhattan
• 3:09
  crashes. Look, those aircraft did not
• 3:13
  wander off course. 19 Al Qaeda terrorists seized 4 passenger
• 3:18
  jets and deliberately used them as weapons.
• 3:20
  Nearly 3000 people, including some Canadians, were murdered.
• 3:25
  It was a coordinated terrorist attack, and it's understood as
• 3:28
  such by the United States, Canada, NATO, and literally
• 3:32
  anyone capable of distinguishing an accident from an act of war.
• 3:37
  So let's understand the Canadian rules.
• 3:41
  Ryerson can disappear, Redundas can can just disappear, McDonald
• 3:47
  can be taken down and put into storage, and even the word
• 3:49
  terrorist attacks can be removed from the story of September
• 3:53
  11th. But Lake Ontario?
• 3:58
  That name carries history. That name must be respected.
• 4:02
  That name cannot be changed. Apparently, names do matter in
• 4:07
  Canada precisely when the Americans pick up the Sharpie.