Several personalities from the Acadian world want the Université de Moncton to change its name. A petition, launched in February in The Acadian Monitor, continues to swell and raise waves. It has just been supported by a public letter from the Mi’gmaq chiefs of New Brunswick.
In a letter dated April 5 and addressed to the rector of the Université de Moncton, Mr. Denis Prud’homme, Mi’gmaq representatives from New Brunswick affirm that “many colonialist names continue to cause pain and trauma to members of our communities and to other groups and cultures. They say they support the idea of a name change for the Université de Moncton.
Acadian activist and former trade unionist Jean-Marie Nadeau considers this to be another major support for this project, which has been coming up periodically for years. “It’s not possible that this name hasn’t finally been changed,” he said in an interview with Duty. Jean-Marie Nadeau explains that the Mi’gmaq, close to the Acadians, also had to suffer heavily from the effects of British colonialism.
Chief Rebecca Knockwood and Chief George Ginnish say they want to collaborate, as they indicate to the rector of the university, in a possible process to rename the institution.
The Moncton Case
The petition for the Université de Moncton to change its identity was initiated by Jean-Marie Nadeau. It now has, he says, more than 1,400 names.
Among the signatories of the petition are personalities from the world of culture, including writers Antonine Maillet and Serge Patrice Thibodeau, singers Lisa Leblanc and Édith Butler, as well as filmmaker Renée Blanchar. Cajun singer Zachary Richard is also among the signatories.
“To date, we have around 150 artists who have signed, but also a lot of people from the political world, but also a lot of workers,” explains Jean-Marie Nadeau at Duty.
Among some fifty Acadian political figures who support this desire to see the university adopt a new identity, the names of the mayors Bernard Thériault and Denis Losier, respectively of Caraquet and Tracadie, give weight to the whole. Diane Adam, former federal Commissioner of Official Languages, is also among the signatories.
The city of Moncton, from which the university takes its name, owes its name to Robert Monckton (1726-1782), a senior officer in the British colonial army. Monckton is partly responsible for the deportation of Acadians and abuses against the Mi’gmaq. Monckton busied himself arresting Acadians, burning their villages and setting up the deportation, by boat, of 1,100 people whom he had gathered at Chignectou. The City of Moncton eventually dropped the k from the soldier’s original name. Should the city also change its name?
Opponents
On April 3, in the pages of theNew Acadia, a dozen Acadian personalities, including former Supreme Court judge Michel Bastarache and former minister Aldéa Landry are opposed to the name change of the institution. They argue that this is a strictly symbolic approach that does not change the quality of education offered to students. Moreover, according to them, these questions leave the younger generation indifferent.
Proponents of the name change counter that the ability to name oneself in French constitutes an opportunity for visibility of the language which is important and which is far from being strictly symbolic. On the contrary, it is a manifestation of a desire to tackle the fundamental problems rather than accepting to let English occupy a place left vacant.
“Over the past fifty years,” explains Jean-Marie Nadeau, nearly 200 universities and colleges in the United States have changed their names. “It shows that changing the name of a university is not an illicit, unusual and incongruous gesture as some would have us believe”.
In his open letter which set fire to the powder last February, Jean-Marie Nadeau recalls that Ryerson University in Toronto has also just changed its name and that it was not the end of the world. It is now known as Toronto Metropolitan University.
Egerton Ryerson helped establish a free and compulsory education system for English speakers. However, he is also known for having contributed to the establishment of residential schools in Canada, one of the main vectors of acculturation.
By changing its name, Ryerson University “did not lose its luster and notoriety for all that,” notes Jean-Marie-Nadeau.
For him, “it is time that we reclaim the grandeur of our history by simply calling our university: Université de l’Acadie. It doesn’t matter to him that an English-speaking university in Nova Scotia is already called Acadia University. “One way or another, this is called cultural appropriation,” he says.