Movement rekindled to rename N.B. university connected to ‘torturer’ of Acadians – New Brunswick | 24CA News
A motion has been rekindled in New Brunswick to shed a francophone college’s connection to Robert Monckton, a British army determine who performed an lively function within the imprisonment and deportation of 1000’s of Acadians.
More than 1,000 individuals from Canada’s Acadian neighborhood — together with dignitaries, lecturers and artists — have signed a petition to rename Universite de Moncton, the nation’s largest French-language college outdoors Quebec.
“We have mobilized and are creating an irreversible movement,” Acadian activist Jean-Marie Nadeau stated in an interview Tuesday. “There has never been such a large and popular mobilization (on this issue) like the one we have.”
The college was based in 1966 and took the identify of the City of Moncton, the situation of certainly one of its three campuses and the second-largest metropolis within the province, after Saint John.
Moncton can also be residence to lots of Canada’s Acadians, whose ancestors had been forcibly deported from the Maritimes after Great Britain received the Seven Years’ War. Between 1755 and 1763 roughly 10,000 Acadians had been expelled from their land by the British.
Nadeau stated the controversy to rename the college has resurfaced a minimum of as soon as a decade because the Nineteen Seventies. The newest revival got here after he wrote an essay on Feb. 7 in native newspaper Le Moniteur Acadien calling for the change. About one week in the past, Nadeau and Jean-Bernard Robichaud — rector of the college from 1990 to 2000 — began a petition on social media to vary the identify of the college.
Acadian signatories embody present and former politicians, chancellors, and attorneys, in addition to novelist Antonine Maillet, singer-songwriter Edith Butler, musician Zachary Richard and filmmaker Renee Blanchar.
“We are doing this movement because we are tired of dragging the name of Monckton like a ball and chain attached to our university,” Nadeau stated. “Monckton was one of our main torturers and executioners-in-chief, responsible for the logistics of the deportation in 1755.”
In the letter connected to the petition, Nadeau and Robichaud ask why the individuals answerable for the college proceed to refuse to vary the identify.
“Is the name of our university consistent with its identity? For the signatories of this letter, the answer is an unequivocal no. You have the power to change this name to reflect the Acadian reality,”
the letter says.
Representatives for Universite de Moncton didn’t reply to a request for touch upon Tuesday.
The mayor of Caraquet, N.B., Bernard Theriault, additionally signed the petition. He stated that as a French-speaking Acadian who graduated from Universite de Moncton, it’s time for change.
“The Acadian community is strong enough today to take on this change,” Theriault stated, including that the neighborhood had by no means clearly expressed its want as strongly as it’s doing now.
Nadeau stated he was impressed by latest occasions throughout the nation over the previous couple of years, throughout which monuments to controversial historic figures had been torn down and road names linked to them had been modified.
He talked about the Nova Scotia communities that faraway from their property the identify of former governor Edward Cornwallis, who issued a “scalping proclamation” in 1749 that supplied a bounty to anybody who killed Mi’kmaq males, girls or youngsters.
Nadeau additionally cited the previous Ryerson University — now Toronto Metropolitan University — which was named after Egerton Ryerson, who helped create the nation’s residential college system.
“So, we are also part of this new movement, and the time is right,” Nadeau stated. “The Acadian people stand tall and are proud, and by changing its name, l’Universite de Moncton will be one of the most beautiful symbols of this rediscovered pride and dignity.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first revealed March 8, 2023.
© 2023 The Canadian Press
