EZRA LEVANT ｜ If you can damn a founding father of Canada, you condemn the memory of anyone else in Toronto
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Summary
Jennifer Dundas is a descendant of Henry Dundas, and she wants the city of Toronto to cancel the name of the man who helped free the slaves. She's fighting for freedom, but Mayor Olivia Chow wants to unname him.
Transcript
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Hello, my friends. Interesting show today. We're going to interview Jennifer Dundas,
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a descendant of Henry Dundas, after whom Dundas, Ontario, and Dundas Street, and Young Dundas
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Square, a lot of iconic places in Ontario were named. Well, Mayor Olivia Chow of Toronto wants
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to unname them. She wants to cancel Henry Dundas. We'll talk about that. But first,
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I want to invite you to go to rebelnewsplus.com. That's the video version of this podcast.
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It's $8 a month, and you get the video version. I do the show every weekday. But more than
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on. You can subscribe at rebelnewsplus.com. All right, here's today's show.
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Tonight, will the city of Toronto cancel Henry Dundas 200 years after he helped free the
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slaves? It's December 14th, and this is the Ezra LeVant Show.
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There's a Latin phrase, so of course I love it, damnatio memoriae, if I'm saying it right.
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That means to condemn the memory of something, or usually someone. And what would happen is
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a Roman emperor who had a rival, maybe his predecessor, maybe a brother, who would take
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office and then do anything to eradicate any trace of his nemesis. Any statue would be destroyed,
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or at least the face chiseled out. Any painting would be painting over. Any morguesaic would
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be destroyed, and any law passed by that person would be repealed. The idea was to turn that
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person and their entire works and their entire history into a wisp, a rumor, a nothing. Now,
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we only know about the unsuccessful cases of damnatio memoriae, where there's a trace left,
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where they missed a statue or a mosaic. We have no idea. How could we know if it was actually
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successful on anyone? Can you imagine that? If we simply had an entire chapter of our history gone
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because someone didn't like a rival. How barbaric, how uncivilizational, how ahistorical. Well,
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you may know, you may be thinking, well, we are doing that today, aren't we? I am in Toronto,
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where at Queen's Park, which is the name of the provincial parliament, there is an enormous statue
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of Sir John A. MacDonald, the founder of this country. But it is in a giant wooden sarcophagus,
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a coffin built around Sir John A., so you never have to look at him again. He's been stripped
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from our $10 bill, and they're certainly not stopping there. In fact, if you can
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damn the memory of the founding father of Confederation, you can damn the memory of anyone
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else, and Toronto's amongst the worst of it. They renamed Ryerson University because of something he
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allegedly did. And 200 years ago, there was a great statesman, a little more than that, named
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Henry Dundas, who was a key political leader in the British Empire and had roots in Ontario.
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And it is after him that the town of Dundas and Ontario was named, Dundas Street. And if you've
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ever been to Toronto, you may know that in the downtown, there's this lively square. It's sort of
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Canada's version of Times Square. There's theaters, there's restaurants, there's giant billboard ads,
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and it's teeming with people and buskers and food trucks. That's called Young Dundas Square.
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But wouldn't you know it? Today's damnatio memoriae practitioners, today's censors and cancel
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culturers. They've drawn a target on Henry Dundas, and they actually propose to rip out the name,
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to rename everything in the city that bears the word Dundas, including libraries and roads, and
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yeah, 4,500 businesses. Here's Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow, a city wracked by crime, homelessness,
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high taxes, transportation issues. No, she has a higher priority. She must condemn the memory
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of a man she knows very little about. Listen to Olivia Chow, the socialist mayor,
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condemning Henry Dundas and getting her facts wrong, by the way. Take a look.
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When it comes to renaming Dundas, some people have drawn the comparison to
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the renaming of Centennial Stadium. People have said, you know, if you're going to rename
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Dundas, costly crow says, because of a controversial figure like Dundas, why would you go about
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and name a stadium after someone with an equally controversial background? Is that not, you know,
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Dundas delayed the cancellation and the abolition of slavery
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for many years. He also promoted taking children, young girls and boys, to bring them, take them away
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from their parents and bring them to England, to other parts of Europe as slaves so they could
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multiply, procreate, so there will be enough people, enough labor, slave labor, in order to service
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the plantations. Surely you're not comparing a slave owner. Well, and it's not, I don't know whether
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it's a slave owner or not. Well, but allow me to finish. The motion that then the Councillor
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Moist would be bringing forward addressed this. I do know the pain of losing a loved one. I understand that.
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That is why I supported Councillor Ainslie motion to name a football stadium because I understood what
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that meant for the Ford family. I certainly understood how painful it was for a young person to die
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prematurely. And yeah, that's why it's in front of the agenda today.
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Could you imagine spending, the new estimate is $12.7 million. Of course, it'll be many times that.
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But what about the fact that if there's someone 200 years ago who doesn't meet our latest political
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fashion, even if it's a slur against them, a defamation that they can't defend, what about
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the idea that we simply tear things down, tear down our history? It's actually, if you read the book
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1984, what the hero of the book Winston Smith did for a living, he would go into work and every day
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he would rewrite historical accounts to change them to fit with political fashions. Well, I've got some
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strong views on this subject, but I'm not an expert in it. But fortunately, we have someone joining us
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today who is. Her name is Jennifer Dundas. And as you can detect, she's actually a descendant of Henry
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Dundas. And she is one of the Dundas family members who is campaigning against this eradication of our
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history, campaigning against this Roman practice of damnatio memoriae, this past tense cancel culture.
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And she joins us now via Skype. Jennifer, what a pleasure to meet you. Thanks for taking the time.
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Thank you so much, Ezra. A pleasure to be here.
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Well, it's troubling to me that we want to destroy our past. And in that brief conversation that we
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played where Mayor Olivia Chow was talking about Henry Dundas, you can see she has a very weak grasp
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of who he is, who he was, and what he did. She accuses him of being a slaveholder, then immediately
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pulls that back. I mean, she really knows nothing about the man. Why don't you tell us, as someone
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who was descended from him and someone who has studied him, obviously, who exactly was Henry Dundas?
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And why has he for two centuries been celebrated in Ontario? Why are so many things named after him?
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Those are a lot of questions that I could go on for a long time about. But I'll just start by telling you
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the big picture about Henry Dundas. He was the most powerful politician in Scotland for a good
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three decades at the end of the 18th century, early 19th. And was a secretary of state, including
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home secretary, a war secretary during the Revolutionary Wars with France. And during that
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time, the abolition movement in Britain rose up. He was actually one of the very first participants
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in that. In 1776, he had just been elected. He was the Lord Advocate, which is like a solicitor
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general, attorney general for Scotland. And he volunteered his time. He worked pro bono to
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represent a black slave who was fighting for his freedom in the Scottish courts. And he took
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that case up to Scotland's highest court. And not only did he win freedom for that slave who
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had been brought to Scotland from Jamaica, he won a declaration from the court that nobody could be
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a slave on Scottish soil. Really big decision. He made legal history basically in Scotland
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when he won that case for Joseph Knight. A couple of decades later, not quite, the abolition movement
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regarding the abolition of the Atlantic slave trade picks up some speed. It had been rumbling
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for a long time. But William Wilberforce brought that to the forefront of Parliament's agenda.
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And he was trying to get abolition of the slave trade alone. Henry Dundas stepped in and said,
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you're not going to be successful. The forces lined up against this are too powerful. And it will just
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go underground. And the Caribbean slave owners will continue buying their slaves from other traders.
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It just won't work. So if you really want to shut down the slave trade, you have to shut down the
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slave trade and slavery together. And so he brought forward a motion to that effect,
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and said that the abolition should happen gradually. And his vision was that by within seven or eight
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years, the entire slave trade would be abolished. And within a generation, slavery itself would be
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abolished because every child born to a slave would be born free and would have to be educated at
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the expense of the owner of the parents. So he, those, that was his contribution.
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Let me stop you there just for one second. I'm sorry to interrupt.
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Are you, I just want to get this point clear, because I think this is very interesting,
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if I heard you right, that Henry Dundas himself introduced this proposal. Is that correct?
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He, he was responding to William Wilberforce, who had brought a motion in 1792 for the immediate
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abolition of the slave trade, complete, total abolition overnight. Henry Dundas said in 1792,
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that's not going to work. So he brought in an amendment, he introduced an amendment,
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his amendment was successful for gradual abolition.
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Got it. And this was for the slave trade as well as slave ownership, because there's different
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levels. There's the slave trade, there's having slaves, there's the emancipation of children of
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slaves. I know that this sounds like it's petty details, but it's actually, each of these was an
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important breakthrough. It marked the end of, I mean, for example, if every child born to a slave is
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born free. Right there, that's, you know, that's a time limit on slavery in itself. Each of these
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is an important step. So, so which were the things that Henry Dundas was pushing for?
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What he is criticized for is the fact that he took William Wilberforce's motion and proposed an
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amendment that abolition, abolition should be gradual. Um, and, uh, in his speech in support of that
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amendment, he laid out his plan and his plan was, um, to eradicate or abolish the slave trade within a
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time to be determined, later determined to be seven or eight years. And that, uh, slavery itself would be
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eradicated by eliminating what they called hereditary slavery. So if a, if a person owned a slave, they
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also owned the children of those slaves, he would have put an end to that so that every child born to
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a slave after that would be a free person entitled to education. Although there were, there was also
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this idea that the child would have to work to pay back the cost of their education. Nonetheless,
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within a generation, he would, he, his proposal would have eradicated slavery, um, within a generation.
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You know, I, I, I learned something very recently that I, I was shocked to read it. And in fact,
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I didn't believe it at first. I learned that an enormous loan, an enormous amount of money borrowed
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by the British empire about 200 years ago, um, to emancipate the slaves in the British empire
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was only finally fully repaid in the year 2015. So, uh, I mean, and I thought to myself, and some people
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say, well, why would you pay to emancipate a slave? Why would you give money to the slave owner? Shouldn't you
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be giving money to the slave? But I think it, if you want to be realistic and if you want to talk
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about how the world was and how the world is in many parts to this day, slavery was an essential
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part of the economy, especially in the new world, especially in the Caribbean, especially in, in South
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America. And if you were to simply ban and make illegal the ownership of slaves, every interest that
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depended on slaves would obviously reject it. And the whole idea is, can you actually get things
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done? Can you actually get things done in parliament and have it affected through the law and have the
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judges and the military and the state behind you, if you simply propose, we're going to end slavery
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tomorrow, the, the likelihood of that happening, however much we might wish it would happen was nil.
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So the combination of this gradual phase out of different degrees of slavery combined with the largest
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loan I think ever taken. In fact, based on a GDP basis, the size of that loan was a quarter of a
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trillion dollars. It was 40% of the, of the entire GDP. It took nearly 200 years to pay off. The British
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government, the British military, the British empire, assisted by Henry Dundas, eradicated
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slavery for the first time in history, I suppose, other than when Moses led the, the Israelites out
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of Egypt. I mean, for, for Olivia Chow in 2023 to say, oh, he was responsible for slavery. Why didn't
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he just snap his fingers and end slavery? It's such a shocking and a historical thing. What, do you have
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any comments on what I've just said? Do you have any corrections for my understanding of the history of
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One thing I would say is that this idea that slavery was essential, I would say that, that isn't a given,
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but the powerful interests that opposed abolition of slavery, those, those interests were, were very difficult to
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overcome. And so basically what parliament had to do was buy off the slaveholders. It was the only way they were going to
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exit the ownership of slaves. And so whether or not they needed them, it's, you know, I would, I would argue,
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actually, they didn't need them. But, but that was just the time and how difficult it was. So that tells
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you, because that was, that started 41 years after Henry Dundas proposed the elimination of hereditary
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slavery. So that bill was passed in 1833. It didn't take effect until 1838. So even though it passed it in
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1833, slaveholders still had five years within which they were entitled to the services of these slaves
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through some kind of apprenticeship that was in place. But full emancipation didn't happen till
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1838. So that is 46 years after Henry Dundas proposed eliminating slavery within a generation and
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abolishing the slave trade within seven to eight years. So you can tell why he would have, he would
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have proposed this gradual process because he understood the forces that were lined up against any
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any government winding down slavery or the slave trade. And he did some shuttle diplomacy, he went
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back and forth between the supporters and the opponents of abolition, and he came up with this
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compromise. And he was the second in charge, basically, in the British government, second to
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Prime Minister Pitt. And he would have been a powerful ally to the abolitionists if they had joined with
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him and said, Yes, we'll work with you on on this plan. Instead, they rejected it outright, they wanted
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immediate and total abolition of the slave trade, right away, with abolition of the slavery itself, is
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something that they they weren't even going to seek legislation on. They thought if you eliminated the slave
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trade, that slavery would just wither on the vine. Well, fast forward to the 1820s. So 30 plus
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years later, slavery is thriving, just as much as it ever had, the elimination of the slave trade didn't
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affect the number of slaves in the Caribbean, one bit, just as Henry Dundas had predicted. And then they
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started saying publicly, both William Wilberforce and the patron of the abolition movement, the Duke of
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Gloucester started saying publicly that they regretted having rejected Henry Dundas's plan. So here you have
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two of the most prominent abolitionists in Britain, both saying Henry Dundas was right, we wish we had
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followed his plan. And now we have Toronto saying no. William Wilberforce was right in 1792, when he
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denounced Henry Dundas for wanting to move gradually instead of all at once and only on abolition of the slave
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trade. Another part of the context that's really important here is that in January of 1793, France declared war on
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Britain. And France, which had a population of 24 million plus, and a conscripted army, was a huge force, opposing this
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little island with 8 million people. And so at that point, the public interest in any kind of abolition
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just vanished. And there was no political will left throughout that time during the revolutionary wars
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in the 1790s. For Britain to basically weaken its position in the war by allocating resources to
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abolish the abolition of the slave trade. In addition, if they had pursued abolition, they would have
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alienated their interests in the Caribbean, which would have given France an advantage. So in the midst of
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what became a world war, with most European countries in France, and even Egypt, it went as far south as
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Egypt engaged in this world war. It was too much to expect that Britain would be willing to compromise its
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security and its defense of its people by eliminating a slave trade that affected, you know, granted, tens of
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thousands of people every year who were transported from Africa into the Caribbean. But it was looking back
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now, you can just see that that was an unrealistic demand that William Wilberforce and others were
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making during the revolutionary wars. And in some cases, you can see they were willing to compromise
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then, but it was it was too late. I mean, Britain couldn't do that in the middle of a world war when its
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security was on the line. You know, I'm thinking about what you're saying carefully. And I am quite
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sure the lot of people are saying, well, slavery is wrong. We all know that just do it. Because that's
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what we know in 2023. But what we have to remember is 200 250 years ago, people who were against slavery
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were were radical. They they would be, they wouldn't just be quote, progressive, they would be regarded as
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in some ways, unpatriotically. So like, it was such a radical departure from not just the norms of
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the age, but of all time, there's been slavery, since prehistoric times, since biblical times in
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every single continent. So the idea that the world's leading empire would simply take away what was
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regarded as an economic asset. And I agree with you, that that slavery was not required, but it was
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a benefit free labor, what's not to like if you are an amoral businessman. But, you know, I know,
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I mean, I don't think Olivia Chow is a thoughtful person. I don't think she studied history. I think
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she's very shallow and is simply a cliche monger. And this is progressive and woke. So she's doing it.
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But I think that you can't judge things by 2023 standards in the in the time when it was happening.
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This was unique around the world, there was no movement to end slavery in China, or the or the
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caste system and its associated slavery in India, or in the heart of Africa, or in Russia, there was
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slavery in all these places. And in fact, for 50 years, not only did the Brits abolish slavery, but
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the West Africa squadron of the Royal Navy, for another 50 years, tracked down captured slaving ships
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off the west coast of Africa, captured and seized the ships, and freed the slaves. So they weren't just
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banning slavery and the slave trade in the British Empire, they were stopping it anywhere and
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everywhere. That is unique, borrowing a quarter trillion dollars taking two centuries to pay it
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off. Sending the Navy on a 50 not not a one week photo op, but a 50 year project to stop slavery
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is the most progressive and life affirming thing perhaps ever done in history. And
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in addition to that is 1600 British soldiers lost their lives on those ships, when they were fighting
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the the slaving ships and trying to capture them. So it was a huge sacrifice for the country. And it was
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a very revolutionary idea for the time, although France also did embrace it for a period of time in the
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1790s. Although it then later reversed the abolition of slavery. But for a brief time in the 1790s, France,
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partly as a way to unleash the forces of the black inhabitants of the Caribbean against the British,
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declared emancipation of those slaves, but then reimposed slavery when it was no longer in France's
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interest to support emancipation. But yeah, it was definitely a revolutionary thing to do.
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Slavery was ubiquitous throughout the world. And so it was really a new way of thinking about
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relationships between human beings. You know, it was a very Christian idea as well. I mean,
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William Wilberforce was motivated by Christianity. It was the Christians who led the abolitionist movements.
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And that song, Amazing Grace, sort of, and it was a very popular movie about 20 years ago as well
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about that story. There was no Amazing Grace Wilberforce movement. In fact, to this day,
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in many countries, there is still slavery in China, Arabia, and Africa. One of the things that bothers me
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is that this is an attempt, so obviously, to graft on an American narrative onto Canada. I mean,
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this whole change the name of Dundas stream came about from Black Lives Matter, which is a US
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corporation that basically started a Toronto franchise, but we just don't have the same history.
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Yes. Around that whole George Floyd Black Lives Matter movement that rose up so strongly in 2020,
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I mean, that was happening as a way of addressing the legacy of slavery in the US. But what was
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happening in Canada was completely different. So Henry Dundas appointed the first Lieutenant Governor
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in Upper Canada, and his first order of business was to try to eradicate slavery in Upper Canada. He said,
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under no circumstances will I tolerate laws that differentiate between Black people and white
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people. He tried that in 1792. He met with so much opposition that his efforts failed. But in 1793,
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some circumstances changed and allowed him to bring forward another proposal. This time,
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he pursued gradual abolition, in a sense of an end to hereditary slavery, although more slowly than what
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Henry Dundas had proposed. But reflecting, you know, the powers that were lined up against him,
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this was John Graves Simcoe, first Lieutenant Governor. He proposed, first of all, that anybody who came
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to Upper Canada would be a free person. So if anyone came with their slaves, or if slaves escaped from the
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US to Upper Canada, they would immediately become free people. And then for those who were already
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enslaved in Upper Canada, and there were about 500, between 500 and 550 slaves at that time,
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they would remain slaves, although their children would achieve emancipation at the age of 25,
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and their grandchildren would be free from birth. And so what happened was, this was the beginning,
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this was the, he was planting the seeds of what later became the Underground Railroad, when slaves
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escaped from the bounty hunters in the northern states, and from slavery in the southern states,
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to a place of safety in Upper Canada. That, you can trace a direct line from that to Henry Dundas.
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Another thing is, Toronto was incorporated in 1793, the very same year that that bill was passed,
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that said that anyone who arrives in this province is a free person. So Toronto was born as an
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anti-slavery city. A true sanctuary city in the original meaning of that word.
00:29:28.240
Exactly. And from the very first days of it being incorporated as a city, it was an anti-slavery,
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pro-emancipation place, where people had refuge and safety.
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You know, I mentioned earlier that slavery was endemic in every single continent,
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and that is the case in the Americas as well. Of course, the conquistadors, when they discovered
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the Aztecs and when they landed, there was massive slavery, and in fact, human sacrifice. And across
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Canada, whether it was in Ontario, Quebec, or in British Columbia, slavery was part of the
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indigenous economy and the part of indigenous warfare. And in fact, there was a point in time
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when just numerically, the largest number of slaves in Canada were indigenous people who were enslaved
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to other indigenous bands. And I'm not saying this to make any political point other than slavery was
00:30:24.720
everywhere, has always been everywhere. You can read about it in the Bible, you can read about it in
00:30:28.960
in law. But it was the British Empire that went to enormous political and financial and military-length
00:30:36.320
standard. And frankly, our American cousins, who were about 50 years behind or 80 years behind,
00:30:42.480
they had their bloodiest war of their history, much more bloody than their World Wars or the
00:30:47.840
Revolutionary War. The Civil War, their bloodiest war by far, was at least in part over slavery.
00:30:54.800
And the one thing I would caution, though, on that analysis is that it was a different kind of
00:31:01.920
slavery, depending on the location. So what was the most horrible part of the slavery in the Caribbean,
00:31:10.720
and as a result of the Atlantic slave trade, was this idea of chattel slavery, where a slave
00:31:19.680
was with had no more rights than livestock, they were they were owned completely, including their
00:31:26.480
offspring. That was that's not the same as slavery in other parts of the world. And and I think when
00:31:35.920
we're talking about indigenous people and their connection with slavery, we have to be sensitive to
00:31:40.560
that. And that, you know, there would be wars between various indigenous nations, they would capture
00:31:51.520
people from their enemy, and they would be enslaved, but very often they married into these tribes.
00:31:59.040
And, and, and so it was, it wasn't the same kind of slavery, it, in all cases, I mean, it may have been
00:32:08.320
like chattel slavery here and there. But, but I think there does need to be a distinction. And I don't mean to
00:32:15.120
paint indigenous people with the same brush, because it was particularly horrible what happened to black
00:32:21.280
people who were enslaved, that additional information. Of course, I, you know, I'm not an
00:32:26.960
expert on these things. I'm like a lot of people, I think I've just tried to learn about it on my own.
00:32:32.560
And, you know, just the sheer numbers of slaves I was seeing today, one black scholar was pointing
00:32:37.680
out just how many went to South America. That's one reason why the demographic hue of that continent is
00:32:45.120
the way it is. And, and I think that in certain places, like if you've ever been to the French
00:32:51.760
Caribbean, I mean, Haiti or Martinique, the slaves were worked quite often to death and just simply,
00:32:59.440
quote, replaced. I mean, there were, I suppose, degrees of brutality. But, you know, I recommend
00:33:06.080
for anyone who's ever been to Washington DC to go to the Lincoln Memorial and just read his
00:33:11.920
condemnation of slavery. And frankly, his premonition that every dollar that was enriched
00:33:19.200
through slavery would be paid in cost and every drop of blood would be, I mean,
00:33:24.240
it was just quite a striking religious, biblical condemnation that, that Lincoln gave. And it's
00:33:30.640
inscribed on the walls of the monument. No, he just reminded me of something that,
00:33:36.240
that Mayor Chow said, and we never really did discuss the content of her comment that you opened
00:33:42.880
the program with. And she, she accused Henry Dundas of proposing the breeding of slaves by bringing just
00:33:51.840
young girls and children into the slave trade. That is so unfair because it was William Wilberforce who
00:34:00.400
first proposed as part of his plan for abolition, that slave owners would be encouraged to breed
00:34:08.560
their slaves and keep them healthier so that they would breed and therefore they wouldn't need to
00:34:13.280
import more slaves from Africa. That was his idea. And when Henry Dundas accepted some of William
00:34:21.360
Wilberforce's idea, people just forgot that where those ideas came from. And when Henry Dundas was crafting
00:34:29.200
the compromise that would have resolved slavery, he gets blamed for what sound, which were horribly
00:34:38.880
offensive ideas. But where did they came come from? They came from the people who were seeking
00:34:44.720
abolition themselves. And so to blame Henry Dundas for that is, is just ridiculous. And also to blame him, I
00:34:53.040
would suggest he might have been a slave owner, also completely ridiculous. He, he said all his life that
00:34:59.600
he was opposed to slavery, that it was contrary to justice and humanity. And no one in the Dundas family
00:35:10.320
was connected to slavery. I mean, they were politicians, landowners, judges, lawyers, they were
00:35:17.840
professionals. But Henry Dundas's family had zero connection to slavery.
00:35:25.280
I don't think Olivia Chow knows anything other than, you know, a few lines she hears here and
00:35:29.840
there. And on that basis to damnatio memoriae, to condemn the memory of someone who obviously was
00:35:35.680
integral in the deconstruction and the elimination of slavery. You know, again, we're looking at this in
00:35:42.560
2023 where, yeah, it's obvious, we all know this. But 200 years ago, it would have been not just
00:35:49.760
radical morally, but it would have been radical economically to say, hey, America, which at the
00:35:56.320
time was, you know, I mean, the American Revolution was 1776. But for 150 years before that, it was
00:36:05.520
part of the British Empire. And there was still slavery throughout the Caribbean and South America,
00:36:10.560
et cetera, to simply say, hey, cotton growers, agricultural growers, your labor force is now
00:36:17.840
done. Good luck with you. I mean, you just like to flip a switch like that. The only way that actually
00:36:22.560
happened was this enormous debt that the British Empire incurred. I mean, I think of how we in our era,
00:36:31.680
I mean, how hard would it be to impose or repeal the GST or a carbon tax or just do some modest matter
00:36:41.680
of low importance, low moral importance? Like there's compromises and debates and amendments
00:36:47.760
and back and forths and referendums and elections. Like nothing moves in our system quickly and
00:36:55.680
cataclysmically. The idea, it would be as if you suddenly passed a bill to eliminate
00:37:02.160
30% of all labor in Canada. Let's say, I mean, it would be an absurd analogy, but let's just say
00:37:07.760
one day you said, no one under the age 35 is allowed to work. I mean, that's not a good analogy,
00:37:13.360
but I'm just trying to come up with a hypothetical scenario that would have the same shocking impact
00:37:18.640
on the world. People would say, that's ridiculous. That doesn't work. You promised, you know, for
00:37:25.280
generations we've been able to do that with the approval of the law. You can't simply change the
00:37:29.280
rules on no notice. I mean, just look at how hard, let me come up with a better analogy, look how hard
00:37:34.960
it is to uproot the taxi monopoly or the dairy monopoly and allow competition there. And I'm just
00:37:41.040
choosing these banal examples that are morally weaker. I mean, imagine trying to change the entire
00:37:49.520
world in one fell swoop. And the guy who says, well, I think we can do it. We've got to be a little
00:37:54.800
more gradual. Let's start by banning the slave trade and then giving emancipation to the next
00:38:01.360
generation and then eradicate slavery itself. And we'll do this over one generation really to end an
00:38:09.360
institution that is millennia old. And to say that he was the brake pedal stopping things. You know
00:38:14.960
what? I don't know the total truth about Henry Dundas and I'm sure you don't either. And I'm sure
00:38:20.880
some of it's lost in time, but let's learn about it and let's talk about it instead of having a fool
00:38:26.640
like Olivia Chow mouth off about it with, you know, a millimeter of shallowness and not just economically
00:38:36.160
disrupting half of the Toronto neighborhoods that bear his name, but also condemning a man who
00:38:43.360
actually made Canada free. I'm appalled by this cancel culture trying to reach back 200 years
00:38:49.280
as if Olivia Chow knows anything. You know, Mayor Chow does have a duty to inform herself,
00:38:55.600
but I actually hold city staff in Toronto responsible for the fact that she has been misinformed.
00:39:02.000
They have had every opportunity to make sure she is properly informed about the history and they
00:39:07.920
have obviously utterly failed to ensure that she has accurate information on which to proceed
00:39:14.000
to her embarrassment, ultimately, I believe. And so they have let her down. One of the things that
00:39:20.720
staff should have done is informed her about Henry Dundas's effect on Canada. And it wasn't just
00:39:27.520
appointing an abolitionist to be upper Canada's first lieutenant governor. He also provided assistance
00:39:38.080
and remediated some of the damage that had been done to black loyalists who had fought for Britain
00:39:44.240
and then were promised free right free land and equal rights in Nova Scotia and other Atlantic provinces.
00:39:52.400
When they got there, they didn't get what they were promised. Henry Dundas, when he heard about that,
00:39:58.160
ordered that they immediately be given their land, plus extra land to compensate them for the delay.
00:40:04.240
And if they were disillusioned with living in Canada and wanted to leave, he offered them free passage
00:40:09.280
back to Africa, to Sierra Leone, where Britain was establishing a colony of free black people.
00:40:16.960
For bilingualism, there was a there was a controversy in lower Canada about what would be the dominant
00:40:26.880
language in the legislature, because there was a French majority, but the English minority actually
00:40:33.360
represented the British who who governed that land. And so Henry Dundas just he ordered them to conduct
00:40:41.600
their proceedings in both languages so that it could, if it was in French, they'd be translated into English
00:40:47.120
and vice versa. As far as Indigenous people go, the Americans were making incursions into Upper Canada
00:40:57.920
prior to the War of 1812 and after the American Revolution, because they wanted more land.
00:41:03.680
And they had identified Indigenous lands as as being prime territory that they wanted. Henry Dundas ordered
00:41:11.600
Lieutenant Governor Simcoe to ensure that their lands were protected for them.
00:41:18.400
And also in the process referred to them as Indigenous nations, as Indian nations, he said.
00:41:25.120
He recognized their sovereignty, and he wanted their rights to be respected. And so everywhere you look,
00:41:33.360
in the ways that he affected Canada, he had a positive impact in ways that even today stand up
00:41:41.840
You know, he sounds like a great builder, a great person with historical sweep, a person who
00:41:47.440
will be remembered and should be remembered. I don't think Olivia Chow will be remembered for much
00:41:53.600
other than presiding over the decline of the city. I'd like to set up a little petition. Look, I'm not here
00:41:59.680
in a position. I mean, we've been talking for the better part of an hour and I really appreciate it.
00:42:03.840
And you've corrected me on a few things that I'm glad you have. And you've made me want to study
00:42:08.160
more because, of course, my command of these historical matters is not deep. It's a little
00:42:13.840
deeper than Olivia Chow's, but I won't call myself a historian just yet. But I'd like to set up a petition
00:42:19.920
at savedundas.com, savedundas.com. Because I know it was a small petition by that American corporation,
00:42:27.920
Black Lives Matter, that got this thing rolling. And I'd like to have a counter petition. I'd like
00:42:32.720
to get more signatures by people who either love or like or know about Henry Dundas or people who say,
00:42:41.440
you know, I don't know that much about him, but I do know this. We shouldn't be deleting and condemning
00:42:47.600
and damning the memory of anyone who violates the fashion of the day or the ill-informed political
00:42:54.160
leaders of the day. So whether you are a true believer in Henry Dundas and believe that he
00:43:00.400
is someone who helped achieve the end of slavery in the British Empire, or if you simply think that
00:43:08.800
we shouldn't delete people from history because they're momentarily unfashionable,
00:43:13.440
I think in either case we should sign the petition at savedundas.com. Jennifer, do you know how many
00:43:19.280
signatures were on the petition that launched this atrocious campaign in City Hall to delete Dundas?
00:43:26.560
It was a few thousand, wasn't it? Yes. It was just over 14,000 and about half of those were
00:43:33.520
Toronto residents, according to the postal codes that they provided on the petition. 14,000, about
00:43:39.280
half were Torontonians. So my goal is to beat that. You know what, I would just caution you,
00:43:44.560
we actually do have something in the works around that. And we're waiting to find out tomorrow what
00:43:49.520
Olivia Chow unveils at council because she has said that she has something to unveil that she supports,
00:43:58.800
which is a much more limited scope of renaming. And what we, the hints are that she's given around this
00:44:07.360
are that the renaming will apply to the subway station by Dundas Square, which is the Dundas
00:44:15.600
station. And that the young Dundas Square itself would be renamed, but that the street name would
00:44:24.000
stay the same. So if there's going to be a petition, we we'd actually like to know actually what Olivia Chow's
00:44:31.760
policy is what she supports and what she's proposing to take forward into 2024 as the change that will
00:44:39.360
happen around the name Dundas. Well, I think we should save Dundas. And I mean, I, I'm not averse to
00:44:46.880
throwing a bone for the subway station because the TTC these days is known for violence and discomfort
00:44:52.560
and lack of hygiene in general and being, and lateness. So I think we're once naming a subway
00:44:59.200
station after a man would honor him. I think now the TTC would dishonor anyone. I think we should
00:45:04.400
rename it Chow station after the mayor, because I think it embodies her. But other than that, I think
00:45:10.480
we have to save Dundas.com. So I'll invite people. Well, personally, I, my, my view is that the most
00:45:18.320
important thing is that people know the historical truth about Henry Dundas as much as we can discern
00:45:24.640
it from the available record at this time. And if they want to go ahead and rename a station or a
00:45:31.920
square or anything, as long as they have the facts right, and they're not saying we're doing this because
00:45:37.120
Henry Dundas supported slavery, or he delayed abolition of the slave trade. Those are just lies.
00:45:44.240
They have been proven to be untrue. There are three peer reviewed articles that expose those lies.
00:45:51.040
And Toronto needs to face up to that before it does anything with the name Dundas. If they face up to
00:45:57.120
the truth, then I'm not going to stand in the way or try to convince them not to rename Dundas Square,
00:46:03.680
or a subway station or a library. As long as they respect the historical record and are honest with
00:46:12.160
citizens about who Henry Dundas was. And the fact that they've decided to change this name
00:46:18.000
for other reasons, and they may have very good reasons for wanting to put new names on some city
00:46:24.000
assets. But if they're going to smear our family name on the basis of lies, we will keep opposing them
00:46:32.960
All right. Well, that's a powerful ending to our conversation. Jennifer, I'm so grateful
00:46:37.360
for your time. And you've planted in my mind the seed of many other questions. And I think I'm going
00:46:41.680
to do my best to educate myself. And I think our viewers who believe in history and respecting those
00:46:49.200
who have come before us, it's a form of the biblical admonition to honor your mother and father.
00:46:54.640
I mean, to throw out the past in ignorance is such a foolish thing. Not only is it disrespectful and
00:47:00.480
frankly immoral, it throws away, I mean, it presumes that we are somehow morally unique and morally
00:47:08.800
special today, and that we have nothing to learn from those who came before us. And I think that's
00:47:13.360
actually the reverse of the truth. Jennifer Dundas, thanks for your time and keep fighting the good
00:47:18.560
fight. Thank you for inviting me, Ezra. It was a pleasure.
00:47:33.680
Well, what do you make of that? I obviously have more to learn about this. Some of the statistics
00:47:39.360
we heard from Jennifer Dundas were slightly different than what I knew. I want to study it more. But look,
00:47:44.080
I know this. Canada has a very different history when it comes to race than the United States. We
00:47:49.280
were the destination of the Underground Railroad. We were with the British Empire when they gradually,
00:47:55.440
but over the course of one generation, extirpated this institution of slavery that has plagued mankind
00:48:01.520
since prehistoric times. And the fact that woke progressives like Mayor Olivia Chow thinks that we
00:48:09.920
have a racist history is atrocious. Frankly, we're not racist. We welcomed her to this country
00:48:15.600
from a less free place. And for her to condemn us as racist is outrageous. And for her to slander
00:48:22.160
Henry Dundas as a slave owner, he never owned a slave. He helped free the slaves. I'm grossed out
00:48:28.800
by this cancel culture. And you know, there may be facts about Henry Dundas that I didn't elicit
00:48:33.280
from his descendant Jennifer Dundas. That may well be the case. There may be other countervailing
00:48:37.680
facts. That may well be the case. How could there not be? There's pros and cons to every politician
00:48:42.480
in the world. But the idea that we would delete someone's name 200 years later when they're not
00:48:47.760
around to defend themselves anymore is just gross to me. I would like you to go to savedundas.com.
00:48:54.080
I know that Jennifer Dundas wasn't quite as bullish on it. She thought, well, maybe there's a compromise
00:48:59.040
here. No, this isn't just about Henry Dundas. It's about stopping the desecration of our history.
00:49:06.160
Go to savedundas.com. Well, that's the show for today. Until tomorrow, on behalf of all of us here
00:49:12.160
at Rebel World Headquarters, to you at home, good night, and keep fighting for freedom.