The Town of Lunenburg is pausing the process of renaming Cornwallis Street to Queen Street which was approved by a 4-3 vote in late November.
The original goal of changing Cornwallis Street was to stop honoring figures with troubled colonial legacies (in this case stemming from the controversy over Edward Cornwallis’s scalping decree that offered a bounty to anyone who killed an indigenous person).
Many residents have since voiced concerns that changing the name to Queen similarly honours colonial legacies and as such is not appropriate.
Deputy Mayor Ed Halverson who voted against selecting Queen Street was similarly left wondering why this name was even on the list of options considering the goal of the change and remarked during the discussion preceding the vote “I think it’s a slap in the face, frankly, to our Indigenous neighbours,”.
On Thursday, Mayor Jamie Myra who voted in favour of Queen Street posted to the town’s Facebook page that they would be halting the name change indefinitely, and it will not proceed until they consulted with indigenous partners on their next steps.
