According to the Tri-City News Article “Is it time to rename Dewdney Trunk Road? A group of determined Coquitlam students say ‘yes’” by Kyle Balzer, a group of Dr.Charles Best secondary students is urging Coquitlam government officials at all levels to renaming the local road as another step towards Truth and Reconciliation with Indigenous people considering its “notorious” legacy. The street is currently named after Edgar Dewdney, an infamous late 19th-century politician who contributed to the creation of residential schools.
Edgar Dewdney Originally born in England, He emigrated to B.C. as a surveyor and road builder. He’s widely criticized for racist relations with Indigenous and Métis nations which included withholding food sources as a means for land control and to push them into reserves, resulting in thousands of deaths from starvation. he feared what the younger generation of Indigenous Peoples would bring forward after the Northwest Rebellion of 1885. he used this as an argument to justify the creation of residential schools, claiming removing them from their parents and communities would turn them into “model citizens.”
“We should learn the person’s background before we honor them as the road name, we should give respect to the people who made a lot of scarified for the society and name the road after them,” said Derrick Wu, Grade 11. “It was important for the government to put time to learn about the person’s background before using it as the road name.”
Wednesday, the provincial government renamed the historical property “səmiq̓wəʔelə” — pronounced Suh-MEE-kwuh-EL-uh — in honor of the Kwikwetlem First Nation’s ties to its ancestral lands. The band, which has territory in the municipalities of Coquitlam and Port Coquitlam, has a number of outstanding land-rights claims including for the Riverview grounds. According to Janis Cleugh recently Tricity news article “Riverview Hospital is renamed ‘səmiq̓wəʔelə’ as master planning starts on the Coquitlam site.” The Rename of the Riverview hospital to honor the First Nations, and it is meaningful to the Truth and reconciliation day.
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“Riverview Hospital is renamed ‘səmiq̓wəʔelə’ as master planning starts on the Coquitlam site.”