Lunenburg to move forward with Cornwallis Street name change

Council for the Town of Lunenburg has decided to move forward with the renaming of "Cornwallis Street" to "Queen Street" more than a year and a half after the town approved recommendations from its anti-racism special committee.

This comes several months after a councillor was removed as deputy mayor after he was critical of the decision to go with Queen Street.

A motion to rescind the name change to Queen was put before council by Coun. Ed Halverson — the same councillor who was removed from deputy mayor duties — on Tuesday and resulted in a tied 3-3 vote, leaving the motion dead on the floor.

The street was originally named after Edward Cornwallis, who the town described as a "controversial former governor of Nova Scotia" who "issued a 'scalping proclamation' bounty in 1749 to anyone who killed Mi'kmaw men, women, and children."

During this week's council meeting, Halverson argued that changing the street name to "Queen" didn't align with the goals of reconciliation with Indigenous communities in the province.

"At the beginning of each of our meetings, we acknowledge that we live on land that was appropriated from the Mi'kmaq," Halverson said during the meeting. "That is uncomfortable because we have to grapple with the realization that we, all of us here, live on land that belonged to somebody else generations ago and was never given up, so, technically, still does.

"I feel like we're good people around this table. I feel like we all agreed that we wanted to move forward and work towards a solution that makes amends as best we can in the spirit of reconciliation," he added.

In November 2023, Queen Street was decided on from a list of nine possible choices:

Of the choices, "Queen" was the only one with no connection to the Indigenous community.

At the time, Coun. Melissa Duggan told CBC News she thought there would be "backlash" for the name choice as it was "not very indicative of what the anti-racism committee was hoping to accomplish."

During this most recent meeting, Halverson also said the name "Queen" was particularly ill-suited, since Cornwallis "committed atrocities in the name of the Crown."

"Now we're renaming the street for the Crown that those atrocities were committed for," he said. "I just ask if I'm missing something, if someone could explain why that's appropriate."

Coun. Jenni Birtles responded by saying that she moved to the town of Lunenburg for the community, not because of a street name.

"I live [on Fox Street] and I don't live there because I think I'm a fox," she said. "I don't live there because I think I'm in nature. I live there because I wanted my kids to go up there and I wanted to be in the community."