Sean Zhang
Staff Reporter
On January 20, a request of renaming Dewdney Trunk Road, sometimes called the “lifeline” for some Coquitlam students, was received by Port Mood-Coquitlam MLA Rick Glumac, according to “Is it time to rename Dewdney Trunk” by Kyle Balzer from Tricity News.
A group of students from Dr. Charles Best secondary school and their teacher lettered the Coquitlam government officials trying to force the government to put renaming into consideration.
Dewdney Trunk, which is named to honor a former lieutenant-governor of Canada pushes Indigenous people in Coquitlam into an awkward place, as the owner of it was Edgar Dewdney: a racist who contributed hugely to the creation of residential school, according to the research on him by the University of Saskatchewan.
When Dewdney was still a renowned lieutenant, he kept a massive amount of food sources from the First Nations people, caused severe starvations among the Indigenous folk.
On February 4, a new article was posted by Coquitlam government on Tricity News lately, replying to Dr. Charles Best secondary students and teachers briefly. “The work done by Dr. Charles Best secondary school teacher Megan Leslie and her grade 9 Social Studies class in shedding light on the origins of Dewdney Trunk Road seems like a great beginning to a full review of Coquitlam’s Street names,” according to “Reviewing the names of Coquitlam streets” by Carl Trepanier.
“We should actualize the slogan of confessing to indigenous people for what we did to them instead of keep it verbal and empty, and here is the time,” said Annie He, grade 11.
Until now, what Canadian people had done to the indigenous people in the past has not been thoroughly revealed. 215 children’s remains were found without name and representation of their identity last summer at a former B.C. residential school in Kamloops, according to “Remains of 215 children found buried at former B.C. residential school” by Courtney Dickson and Bridgette Watson from CBC News.
“Renaming this street is an opportunity to let more people in our community know about the exact importance of identity to Indigenous people and how shameful we should feel about what we had done to them before. It is also what we should do to showing the grit of getting rid of the detestable racism,” said Mike Qi, grade 11.
“Even though we cannot change history anymore, the problem left by history–racism–can be totally wiped out,” said He.
“It’s a godsend to strengthen the friendship between Aboriginal people and us,” said Mike.
“Honour should not be given, should only be earned,” concluded He.
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