OP-ED: Hypocritical woke “patriots” cancel history by erasing Canadian heroes

Sue-Ann Levy writes: “A long-awaited report about the Richard Bilkzsto… has been kept secret…. The “privileged report” was provided to trustees and will not be released due to ongoing litigation.”

Source: Wikimedia Commons

Author: Sue-Ann Levy

It is sadly predictable. Instead of focusing on student learning and the many other issues plaguing their highly dysfunctional school board, the woke Marxists who claim to run the Toronto District School Board recently decided to rename three of its schools that commemorate politicians from the 18th and 19th centuries—the same politicians who helped build our country.

It’s not as if trustees have nothing to do. In fact, accountability is at an all-time low.

A long-awaited report about the Richard Bilkzsto tragedy and the horrible impact of a DEI trainer on this much-loved principal has been kept secret. According to a statement released last month, the “privileged report” was provided to trustees and will not be released due to ongoing litigation.

Yet I am not aware that the lawsuit, filed before Bilkzsto’s death in the summer of 2023, is proceeding.

Another so-called review of a field trip turned Jewish hate fest from last September is nowhere to be seen. We’ve heard nothing since the last education minister, Jill Dunlop, appointed DEI activist Patrick Case to head the review last September!

Still, on February 19, the majority of trustees voted to find new names for Scarborough’s Sir John A. MacDonald Collegiate Institute and Toronto’s Dundas Junior Public and Ryerson Community Schools.

A staff report said the recommendation to change the names is based on the “potential impact these names may have on students and staff based on colonial history, anti-indigenous racism and their connection to systems of oppression.”

The cost of these ridiculous and unnecessary changes is unknown. In fact, trustees voted for the renaming exercise not knowing the cost.

We’re talking about the Father of Confederation and Canada’s first Prime Minister — Macdonald — British politician Henry Dundas and the founder of public education in Ontario, Egerton Ryerson.

Dundas has already been cancelled by the woke Marxists at City Hall, who changed the iconic Yonge-Dundas Square to Sankofa Square — at a cost of $800,000-plus just for the Square.

We also know how Ryerson University was changed to Toronto Metropolitan University in 2022 because Ryerson, though not directly tied to the creation of Canada’s residential school system, advocated for a school system for Indigenous students.

How dare he.

Whether all the claims about the father of Confederation — MacDonald — and the two others are indeed true and that remains dubious, the mores in the 18th and 19th centuries were vastly different than today.

It is beyond foolish that Toronto’s embarrassingly uneducated woke trustees would endeavour to erase history instead of use this situation to educate students about the changes in our society.

Besides, I highly doubt that most students — who care more about their IPhones, Instagram and Tik Tok — would be traumatized by these names.

I suspect that students who graduate unable to read, write and do math will be far more traumatized as they try to get a job without the necessary skills to even give change at a cash register. But this is what our country has turned into under the woke, anti-black racism, Truth and Reconciliation policies of the Liberal government.

Merit no longer matters. Common sense no longer matters. It’s all about hurt feelings and cancelling what our politicians and a minority of activists believe is traumatic to an equal minority of citizens. (Hopefully that will come to an end on April 28 with a change in government).

Lawyer and past Conservative candidate in Scarborough, Mark Johnson, is outraged that the trustees would waste their time on this.

He has started SaveOurHistory.ca — a non-partisan, grassroots movement dedicated to preserving Canada’s history by protecting school names and to stopping the proposed renaming.

”I want to mobilize Torontonians to speak out against this,” he said recently. “We also want to lobby the provincial government to stop this because we don’t have much faith in the TDSB to change this.”

He thinks the three men targeted have been “maligned” by the radical left when in fact they should be commended,

He adds that no historians were consulted as part of the board’s review process before they voted for the name changes.

Johnson says aside from the idiocy of the move, the board broke its own bylaws by passing the motion without saying how much it will cost and where the funds will come from, especially since the board is in a precarious financial state.

”Our schools are literally falling apart with precious money needed to carry out urgent capital repairs,” he said. “Every dollar counts. Surely that’s a more pressing need and appropriate use of our tax dollars.”

He’s right.

But I‘m also very confused.

The very same people who have become Born Again Patriots and are urging us to Buy Canadian and wave our Maple Leaf flags want to pretend that Canada wasn’t built by such historical figures as Sir John A. MacDonald.

I guess the country just dropped from the sky just like their sudden attachment to all things Canadian.