A recent article informed us that the City of Quebec was conducting a “reflection on the criticized place names on its territory.” It is looking in particular at the case of Moncton Avenue, “which bears the name of a general who played a key role in the deportation of the Acadians” and that of Christophe-Colomb Street, “which people blame for the wrongs caused to the Aboriginals.” That’s all well and good. But why stop there?
There are many more “controversial” place names than you might think. It would be profoundly unfair if only certain criminals from the past were targeted, while others continued to rest quietly on their laurels and enjoy the right to appear on our city maps and to display themselves on our street corners. I therefore encourage the City of Quebec (as well as all the municipalities in the province) to continue, but above all to deepen its “reflection.”
So, is it tolerable that a boulevard in the national capital bears the name of Louis XIV, a despot well known for having abolished the Edict of Nantes, persecuted Protestants, driven Jews from the Antilles and, above all, promulgated the Code Noir, which allowed corporal punishment to be inflicted on slaves? That another preserves the memory of the intendant Jean Talon, a henchman of the previous one, who also encouraged explorers to illegitimately take possession of unceded territories? That a boulevard as well as a promenade honor Samuel de Champlain, killer of Haudenosaunee.
And it doesn’t stop there: Duplessis had the “padlock law” passed, which did not respect human rights; George-Étienne Cartier was an accomplice of the genocidal John A. Macdonald, in addition to having received money in the Pacific Scandal; as superintendent of the education office, Pierre-Joseph-Olivier Chauveau had to be involved in the cultural genocide of which the Quebec and Canadian Aboriginals were victims, not to mention that his novel Charles Guerin contains this terrible pun “Guérin works like a [mot en n] » ; Honoré Mercier was accused of taking bribes. Do they really deserve it — given that we are in the 21st century?e century and our collective sense of justice has become so acute — that a thoroughfare is named after them? And what about Pius IX, under whose pontificate a Jewish child was taken from his family on the pretext that a servant girl had secretly baptized him? And… Let’s move on.
Because these examples are enough. The informed reader will have amply understood, we must not be satisfied with half-measures. It is essential to do a major clean-up in Quebec toponymy, a major clean-up that will not leave unscathed either all these public roads that celebrate the saints of the calendar and constitute so many insults to the followers of minority religions!
Evanescence
One of the problems that these changes, which are not only desirable but also necessary, may pose, is that many crimes remain hidden and that people who were thought to be above suspicion yesterday could, in the future, turn out to be terrible criminals – this has already happened, and the case of Abbé Pierre has just recently provided further proof of this.
Such a problem in turn raises many practical questions, including this one: how to change street names, civic addresses, city maps as these potential new revelations come to light? And at what cost?
Perhaps other solutions should then be considered. The most easily practicable, and also the least costly, would consist of no longer giving any place the name of a human person, because humanity being what it is, no human being is safe from accusations of having committed a crime, especially a future crime, that is to say, of having carried out an action which, although legitimate in its time, will nonetheless be deemed criminal in centuries to come.
It would be much more advantageous to give our arteries names of flowers: Avenue des Jonquilles, Rue des Clématites, Allée des Roses, Boulevard des Pissenlits, etc. And if, in the end, we lack angiosperms, it will always be possible, as is already done in new developments whose significant number of residential streets has tested the imagination of municipal specialists in toponymy, to simply number them: First Street, Second Street, etc. We will thus protect ourselves both from unpleasant surprises and from the costs incurred due to all these changes made to toponymy.
Once this salutary measure has been carried out, it will remain to think of bridges, tunnels, parks, metro stations, stadiums and arenas, certain buildings, localities, towns and villages, not to mention the statues which will have to be torn down for the same reasons.
Public space will thus be reconciled with each of its inhabitants; we will live fully in the present, this moment that does not exist, since it is only evanescence, stuck between a past that is already gone and a future that is yet to come. Our new non-place will fit wonderfully with this non-time.