Vaughan dropping defender of slavery’s name from civic holiday: mayor

Thestar.com
June 17, 2020
Ted Fraser

Vaughan’s mayor says it’s doing away with Benjamin Vaughan Day and renaming its August civic holiday to honour John Graves Simcoe, an early abolitionist, thanks to unanimous support for the change from the city’s council.

In a press release on Tuesday night, Vaughan Mayor Maurizio Bevilacqua said he wanted to recognize his council colleagues for “coming together to unanimously support my Member’s Resolution calling for the August Civic Holiday, known as Benjamin Vaughan Day, to be renamed in honour of John Graves Simcoe -- the first Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada and a leading proponent of the Act Against Slavery.”

Giovanni Senisi, a member of the city’s heritage committee, initially brought the motion forward for Tuesday’s meeting because he thought it was not right that the city and residents were celebrating someone who “represents the worst of humanity.”

“I want this motion to give council the opportunity to correct a past mistake,” Senisi, a teacher, told the Star. “The proclamation that renamed our Civic Holiday Benjamin Vaughan Day was in 2013, recent enough to reflect our current values … and I don’t believe our values are represented by having a special day where we celebrate the man who, in 1792, stood up in the British Parliament and argued that freeing slaves in Jamaica would bring about the end of civilization.”

The city itself is also named after Benjamin Vaughan, who played a role in drawing up the Treaty of Paris in 1783, ending the U.S. Revolutionary War. The August civic holiday is already known as Simcoe Day in Toronto.

Bevilacqua said council also approved the creation of a brand-new position, chief diversity officer, on Tuesday night, a post being set up to foster “a culture of inclusion, diversity and excellence throughout the corporation,” according to the release.