Dundas Station to be renamed after confidential deal with TMU approved

Article content

The board of the Toronto Transit Commission approved a new name for Dundas Station in a meeting with more tension than the unanimous vote might suggest.

The renaming, from Dundas to TMU Station, was packaged Wednesday morning as part of a sweeping partnership with Toronto Metropolitan University, which is outside of the subway stop.

While board members spoke with enthusiasm about having TMU’s best minds consulting the TTC on how best to run transit, Councillor Dianne Saxe made it clear she thought the consultation on the name change was “extremely limited.”

She tried to sell the renaming as a compromise from city council’s former goal of renaming all city assets bearing the Dundas name, a process she called “profoundly unpopular” and potentially “really damaging.

“I want to say that nothing I’m doing here today is meant as any repudiation or comment about Henry Dundas,” Saxe said.

While the association was hailed as bringing important technology and know-how to Toronto’s transit system at effectively no cost, it’s unclear just what the city is signing up for because the “partnership framework” remains confidential.

The renaming represents a rare double excommunication of historical figures as it would see the removal of Dundas’ name in favour of TMU, which used to be named after 19th-century educator Egerton Ryerson. TTC vice-chairman Joe Mihevic, asking a question about AI at the university, caught himself referring to the institution as Ryerson.

TMU president Mohamed Lachemi presented a slide deck on the school’s Transit Innovation Yard project. Lachemi told the board the station is seen as “part of the campus” and said renaming it would be a chance to “turn a page” without elaborating.

Lachemi said TMU was “committed to cover the cost of the signage because of the name change.” The board was told there is some immediacy in approving the TMU name because it could be snuck in with system software changes for the soon-to-open Finch West LRT line, offsetting a significant cost.

However, some citizens spoke up with concerns – one of them being that with seemingly no money changing hands with the TMU renaming, cash is being left on the table.

Jennifer Dundas, a distant relative of 18th-century politician Henry Dundas, told the board a recent transit hub renaming in San Francisco led to a nine-figure payday for that municipality. City staff, meanwhile, countered there’s little interest in corporate renamings for subway stations and the potential for such a deal to fall through, forcing the city to swap names again.

Dundas said the public had been “ambushed” with news of the name change as the report that called for the TMU agreement was released just two days before Wednesday’s meeting. “As for the cost, there is no way to assess whether the TTC is getting reasonable value in this mysterious partnership agreement,” she said.

RECOMMENDED VIDEO

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

Try refreshing your browser, or
tap here to see other videos from our team.

Play Video

Saxe apologized to Dundas “for what’s happened to your family” and said she appreciates “your spirited and sustained defence of your ancestor.

“I do want to clearly say that I do accept your research and your conclusions,” she added, presumably referring to her public remarks about Henry Dundas’ contested role in the abolition of slavery.

Daniel Tate, meanwhile, told the board that while the partnership is “probably a good thing,” the lack of transparency and consultation is not. He said removing the name of a major downtown street from the station would make it harder to get around the city, given most users of the subway stop aren’t TMU students or staff.

Tate noted Lachemi had just told the board that TMU was renamed after a two-year consultation.

“Dundas Station is culturally and historically significant. Those yellow bricks are antiquities in our city and people on this meeting are gonna destroy that, erase that with 48 hours of notice?” he asked.

The TTC board called for a “framework for considering the naming of Dundas Station and Dundas West Station” at a meeting in February 2024. That decision included a call for a “racial equity analysis regarding capital asset naming” and a summary of associated costs.

Two councillors who were then serving on the board told the TorontoSun last year that terse words were exchanged at that meeting, but no video of it exists. After a request from Councillor Chris Moise, council was told in June 2024 a video archive wasn’t saved because nobody ended the livestream and it timed out. (Moise is no longer on the TTC board.)

At Wednesday’s meeting, pains were made to distance the transit board from the Dundas renaming initiative. While chair Jamaal Myers warned deputants “we are not here to relitigate the legacy of Henry Dundas,” he also emphasized that the direction to rename the station had come from city council, not the TTC.

In an exchange with Tate, however, Myers portrayed that February 2024 meeting as “public consultation.”

Councillor Josh Matlow, a TTC board member, did not speak at the meeting. As Tate noted, Matlow just months ago said he was “uncomfortable” with the approach in renaming another asset, the former Yonge-Dundas Square, to Sankofa Square.

jholmes@postmedia.com