On December 14, 2023, Toronto’s Community Advisory Committee announced the city would be changing the name of Yonge-Dundas square. The decision happened in response to a petition with 14,000 signatories which requested its name be changed.

Why was there so much political pressure to change the name of an iconic Toronto landmark? The answer is that the Square’s partial namesake was Henry Dundas, an 18th-century politician  known for his role  delaying the abolition of slavery in The British Empire.

Dundas introduced a motion in Britain’s parliament in 1792, which called for a “gradual” abolition of slavery that would stretch until 1807. This legislation earned him the nickname “The Great Delayer.” The objection to the name’s problematic origin motivated the City Council to rename the square. However, it wasn’t until August of 2025 that the new name, Sankofa Square, became official.

“Sankofa,” is a Twi word from the Ghanaian tribe of Akan. The term “sankofa” loosely means “to go back and retrieve.” This saying reminds those who hear it to learn from our past mistakes while looking into the future with an open mind. The name was created in collaboration with Black and Indigenous leaders to ensure authenticity. The city chose a Ghanaian name to exemplify the multicultural roots of Toronto. The area’s importance was clear to the committee, as Sankofa Square is located right next to a densely foot-trafficked shopping mall, Cadillac Fairview’s Eaton Centre. The Eaton Centre attracts ~135,000 visitors a day; it is estimated around that amount of visitors may also walk by Sankofa Square. 

To support the Ghanaian background, debutante Kemi Jones wrote a letter to city council to express her praise and appreciation for the renaming. She shares that her reasoning is that “…there are too many Black residents who are still excluded and left behind. This exclusion is often silent, expressed in silences and internalized racism and shame about our proud African heritage, in denial of our identity.” The renaming was very personal to Jones, as she has lived in Toronto for nearly 40 years, and is a Caribbean woman herself. 

“We have a reputation for being inclusive, for embracing diversity, being intentional in our effort to be equitable,” Jones shared in her letter, referring to Toronto’s multiculturalism.

It took two years of back and forth with the city and the selected committee of Indigenous representatives. Because of how long the renaming took, many people who do not frequent the area or follow the news still do not recognize it. Reddit user “SnapSpark01” mentioned in the r/Toronto subreddit that Sankofa Square will “…Always (be) Dundas Square for me.” There were even rivalling petitions filed against the change, those of which have been voted against by city council.

According to the search results gathered on Google Trends, there’s a positive disparity between the searches for the term “Yonge-Dundas Square” versus the proper “Sankofa Square.” Of course, the search term for the previous name shot up around the time the renaming was finalised in August of 2025, but every month since then, it has held consistently at ~25-40 searches daily. Compared to the newly-appointed Sankofa Square, amassing 100+ searches daily. Despite this, many users online still claim that they’ll be using the older name. Another Reddit user, “carolinemathildes” says this: “I’ll be honest, I never refer to it as Sankofa Square because I never referred to it as Dundas Square to begin with. I just always say “Yonge and Dundas” regardless of if I’m talking about the square, the intersection, the Cineplex, the area as a whole.”

At a city hall meeting on June 18, 2024, city councillors and concerned citizens gathered to discuss the square’s renaming with some expressing their concern. Daniel Tate, brought to the committee’s attention that he had an alleged rivalling petition with an even larger 30,000 signatures. This petition called for the renaming to be reverted, and to keep the original title. However, councillor Paula Fletcher pointed out the fact that many of the persons who have signed the petition are not even residents of Toronto itself. Despite this, Tate had titled the petition as referring to the “citizens of Toronto.” This fact leads Fletcher and many other Torontonians to wonder why non-Torontonians are concerned about this business anyway, as the renaming has no meaning to them or impact on their lives. The petition can be found on change.org, and is titled “STOP the Renaming of Dundas in Toronto”

In an interview with CityNews, Tate said that “…we’re here to tell all our elected leaders, who work for us, as their constituents that it is not acceptable, we know there’s an election in October 2026 and we’re not going to tolerate it.” However at this meeting, Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow made it clear that the money for Sankofa Square’s retitling is not coming from taxpayers or companies. The money required for the renaming will be coming from Toronto’s Section 37 fund, a rough ~$335,000 needed. 

Debutante Jones encapsulates it best; “in 2024, can a City like Toronto afford NOT to have a Sankofa Square?”

The post Toronto’s most famous square was renamed, do you know its new name? appeared first on rabble.ca.

Constable Marc Pinizzotto, 43, was killed while executing search warrants related to a shooting at US consulate

Authorities in Canada are investigating whether the killing of a Toronto police officer while he was executing search warrants related to a shooting at the city’s US consulate is linked a broader series of global terror attacks.

Constable Marc Pinizzotto, 43, a member of the emergency taskforce, was killed on Thursday during a dawn search of an apartment building in the west of the city.

Suspect, 19, still at large after officer dies in hospital having been shot while searching an apartment

A Toronto police officer has been shot dead as police raided an apartment allegedly linked to the March attack on the US consulate, the city’s police chief, Myron Demkiw, said.

Demkiw said 43-year-old constable Marc Pinizzotto was shot while conducting an early-morning search warrant in the north-west of the city and later died at a hospital.