A former mayor of Vancouver is fighting back against cancel culture’s latest attempt to change history.
In January, the Vancouver School Board voted to rename the 120-plus year-old Lord Roberts Elementary School.
Former mayor and founder of the Global Civic Policy Society Sam Sullivan has come out against the school board’s decision as an attempt to erase history.
“Does renaming schools help reconciliation? Not according to the Reconciliation Commission itself. They say renaming schools harms reconciliation. The Chair of the Commission Murray Sinclair explained that it was counterproductive, producing anger, not harmony, revenge not reconciliation,” said Sullivan.
“I’m sure people could find something Lord Roberts did that offends our current sensibilities. He was born almost 200 years ago… Is the Vancouver school board practicing presentism, judging people from the past with the values of the present?”
Lord Roberts Elementary was named after Frederick Roberts, a military general who led Canadian troops in the Boer War.
Opponents of the name argued that Lord Roberts participated in establishing concentration camps following the conflict, but according to Sullivan, the historical record does not necessarily support this claim.
It was the civilian government that created the camps and when Lord Roberts returned from London to the conflict “he refused to have anything to do with running” them. Sullivan cited Mahatma Gandhi’s support for Lord Roberts at the time and his role in providing medical support to people on the ground.
“All of us understand there are situations where a name change is the right thing to do, but let’s have a proper process. Don’t pretend that a replacement building on the same lot is not a renaming. Let’s have a legitimate neutral historian involved, not a Google search by a bureaucrat or an activist,” said Sullivan.
“Let’s allow the alumni and the neighbourhood into the process because names have a deeply personal meaning to them. Let’s have all First Nations involved.”
