The Candice Malcolm Show - Do black Canadians support the renaming of Dundas Square？

00:00:00.000 Canadian elites want to rewrite our history and erase any mention of the old history.

00:00:04.940 Now this in theory is a bid to make newcomers and new immigrants feel more welcome and more

00:00:09.520 comfortable. But does it actually do that? Well today I'm joined by writer and scholar

00:00:13.360 Samuel Say to discuss how people really feel about woke cancel culture bids.

00:00:17.780 I'm Candice Malcolm and this is The Candice Malcolm Show.

00:00:30.000 Hi everyone, thank you so much for tuning into the podcast. Don't forget to like this video,

00:00:33.200 subscribe to our channel. If you're listening to this podcast and you enjoy it, please consider

00:00:36.840 leaving us a five-star review. Don't forget to check out our website tnc.news. Okay, so you've

00:00:42.420 definitely heard the news by now on Thursday, December 14th. Toronto voted, the socialist mayor

00:00:47.120 and the city council voted unanimously to rename the city's iconic Dundas Square. The new name

00:00:52.920 would become Sankofa Square. Well Andrew Lawton almost immediately broke the story that the

00:00:59.700 name Sankofa comes from a tribe in Africa in Ghana called the Akan tribe and they actually

00:01:05.800 have their own sordid history when it comes to slavery. They were part of the slave trade,

00:01:11.040 part of the transatlantic slave trade. They used their own slaves. So we were told that

00:01:15.220 Henry Dundas had to go because of his alleged connections to slavery. Turns out that Henry

00:01:19.760 Dundas was actually quite an abolitionist who fought against slavery and helped end slavery

00:01:24.660 in the British Empire. And yet here we are bringing in a new name that has its own connections. It

00:01:30.180 really makes you shake your head and wonder what's going on in city council in Toronto. Do they do

00:01:34.720 research? Do they even bother googling things before they try to fundamentally change Canada? Well I

00:01:41.020 wanted to bring in a new perspective, a different perspective on this story. So I've asked a writer,

00:01:46.860 scholar and occasional True North contributor Samuel Say on the program today to get his perspective. So

00:01:52.020 Samuel, welcome to the Candice Malcolm Show. Thank you so much for your time today. Thank you for

00:01:56.180 having me. Okay Sam, so you saw the story and well first of all I just want to say congratulations on

00:02:02.960 the recent birth of your son. Welcome to the joys of fatherhood and parenthood. It's really wonderful

00:02:08.740 to see you and your wife so happy. And I did want to get your perspective on what is happening in

00:02:14.400 Toronto. So what do you think of all this? Yeah, you know, I'm a Ghanaian. I'm a Ghanaian Canadian.

00:02:20.700 I'm actually part of the Akan tribe. So when I read this, I'm like, it's frankly so stupid to me. 1.00

00:02:30.060 It's absurd. You mentioned already just how dumb it is because of the fact that if the whole goal 0.99

00:02:35.840 is to try to erase the so-called connections to slavery, well, I mean the Akan tribe, particularly 0.94

00:02:42.180 the Ashanti tribe, the biggest tribe within the Akan tribe, were massive slave traders. They 1.00

00:02:48.360 were, they didn't just trade with the Europeans. They were the one who actually suggested the

00:02:52.960 slave trade to the Europeans, right? And then it was actually, of course, the Europeans, especially 0.66

00:02:58.440 the British, that abolished the slave trade. People like Henry Dundas. Now they say that, you know,

00:03:04.360 he helped delay the slave trade as well too. Well, in a sense that's true, but they're ignoring a lot of

00:03:10.580 context there. Nevertheless, he was still an abolitionist. At least, even if he's an imperfect

00:03:15.440 abolitionist, he's still an abolitionist. But the Akan tribe or particularly the Ashanti tribe within

00:03:21.380 the Akan tribe in Ghana, they were not abolitionists. They were forced to end slavery through the

00:03:27.560 British. So it's so bizarre that they would choose this name to, and you know, one of the fascinating

00:03:33.360 things is that as an Akan person, as a Ghanaian, the meaning of Sankofa is actually very, very

00:03:40.140 important. It means that we should not erase the past. It means that we should not forget the past.

00:03:45.540 We should remember it, right? And to, you know, to try to live in a better way because we remember

00:03:52.920 the past. Well, this is so bizarre because this is literally trying to ignore the past, right? So it's

00:04:00.120 really weird that they're trying to, they're choosing the name Sankofa by doing the very thing

00:04:04.900 that the meaning of the word suggests you shouldn't do. So it's so bizarre. Wow, Sam. Well, thanks for

00:04:09.940 sharing. I mean, there's so much irony wrapped up in this, right? It's like you're taking away the

00:04:14.240 name of an abolitionist and naming it after a tribe that turns out is sort of infamous or well-known,

00:04:19.180 at least for people who are aware of it, with their ties to slavery. And then, of course, the meaning of

00:04:23.500 that word is to do exactly the opposite of what city council has done. Interesting, I noticed on

00:04:29.400 Twitter there's a woman named Jennifer Dundas who, she's actually a guest on Harrison Faulkner's

00:04:33.960 Ratio podcast the other day. I definitely recommend you check that out. But she's a 0.95

00:04:38.140 descendant of Henry Dundas. She's actually a former CBC journalist as well and a crown prosecutor.

00:04:43.840 She wrote that the name was on a shortlist for 14 months and that there was a lot of debate inside

00:04:49.540 council about this. So you would think, you know, they've been planning to do this for years.

00:04:53.440 This was on the shortlist for 14 months. Why didn't anybody bother to sort of look into this?

00:05:00.040 Do they not think about it? Like, what do you think the mindset is behind

00:05:03.560 this unanimous vote? Like, every single councillor, there wasn't a single one that said,

00:05:07.140 hey guys, hold on a second, let's like maybe think this through a little more. No one,

00:05:12.520 apparently no one in the city council had that insight. Why do you think that is, Sam?

00:05:16.860 Well, we've seen lately in our country, considering what happened with the Nazi that was celebrated 0.89

00:05:22.300 by our parliament, when they're thinking of virtue signaling, they're not really thinking about doing

00:05:28.120 research. They're so focused on getting applause from certain groups of people that they just choose

00:05:34.780 to not care about the history. They don't care to think about whether it was the Nazi looking him up

00:05:40.140 to make sure that he's actually a Nazi and not really this war hero that they're making him out to be.

00:05:43.900 Or, like the word Sankofa, they're not thinking about, huh, what are the ties here? Could there be,

00:05:48.420 could anything go wrong with this? They seem to be so focused with virtue signaling that that's all that

00:05:52.960 matters to them. And look, here's the reality. I'm a young Ghanaian Canadian. Ghanaian Canadians do

00:05:58.860 not care about this. We're not, like, there's no Ghanaian Canadian that I know. And I spoke to many

00:06:03.240 of them who are like, yeah, this is, no, what they care about, right? And look, black, black Canadians 1.00

00:06:09.460 tend to be, of course, almost all immigrants, right? First generation immigrants or second

00:06:13.100 generation immigrants. And what they care about most is the economy. They care about fixing the issues

00:06:19.980 that young people, right? Young families are, that Canadian Canadians are trying to feed their

00:06:25.480 families. They're trying to buy homes. They can't. Nobody cares about changing this. It's not pleasing

00:06:30.820 anybody. But as always, it is just the silly government trying to ignore real issues, issues 0.96

00:06:37.460 facing real immigrants. They're trying to ignore that by doing this virtue signaling. And it's not 0.90

00:06:42.360 doing anything. Nobody cares. I really, I really do think that a lot of Canadians have just had enough

00:06:46.660 in general. And it's interesting to hear your perspective about immigrant Canadians and black

00:06:50.360 Canadians as well. It seems to me really, Sam, that multiculturalism is failing before our eyes.

00:06:55.660 I'll give you a few examples of just what we've seen in the past, I don't know, 72 hours here in

00:06:59.800 Toronto. It seems that all the bad stuff is happening in Toronto. So first up at Yorkdale Mall, just north

00:07:04.900 of Toronto, the northern part of the city, we saw families being harassed and intimidated by Hamas

00:07:10.320 supporters at Yorkdale Mall. They're visiting Santa Claus, okay? They're with their kids trying to sit on

00:07:14.400 Santa's knee. And you can hear the jeers and shouting of the crowd. Let's play that quick clip.

00:07:44.400 Next, down at Eaton Centre, which is just across the street from Dundas Square, we saw more Hamas 1.00

00:07:57.600 supporters, this time swearing at Christmas shoppers and even threatening police officers. Looks like a

00:08:02.800 pretty scary, intimidating crowd. Here's a quick glimpse of what that looked like.

00:08:16.640 And then finally, Sam, we saw the news of this gigantic 55-foot religious statue being erected

00:08:25.180 in Brampton, Ontario. There was a tremendous backlash and opposition to this large statue,

00:08:32.520 of course, against the backdrop that Canadian statues get torn down with some frequency. And

00:08:37.600 as we're talking about today, names get removed from our history. And so it's a little strange to

00:08:42.640 see other cultures getting celebrated in this way. What is happening in Toronto? What's happening in

00:08:47.800 Canada? And what can we do about all this?

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00:09:19.800 Is a symptom of what's happened to our country with multiculturalism. Look, I'm an immigrant. I love 1.00

00:09:27.420 my Ghanaian culture. But I also know that I'm in Canada. And that Canada, we do have a culture.

00:09:33.540 It's unfortunate that we're trying to push this multiculturalism thing. There is a Canadian 1.00

00:09:37.240 history and a Canadian culture. And people are trying to abandon that. These are, of course,

00:09:41.320 the woke leftists. But the reason why I mentioned that is because, look, when I immigrated to the

00:09:46.060 country 26 years ago, I knew that I had to assimilate. I knew that there was a dominant

00:09:52.100 culture that I had to respect. And I love the culture that I've came to respect. But the issue

00:09:58.080 now is this. When you push multiculturalism, what you're doing is you're teaching people,

00:10:03.340 you're teaching new immigrants, new citizens, not to respect the culture that Canada has.

00:10:09.140 Therefore, and look, when you have multiculturalism, you're going to have competing cultures.

00:10:13.300 So what happens is when people have competing cultures, there will eventually be a struggle

00:10:18.280 for a dominant culture. And you're seeing that right now. There's some people who want their

00:10:23.360 culture to dominate other Canadians. And that's what you're seeing already with some of these, 0.59

00:10:28.180 some of these, what happened at Yorkdale Mall, or what we've seen already with a lot of the

00:10:31.440 protests, the anti-Semitic protests you've been seeing as well, too. There are people who are

00:10:36.400 trying to establish their own dominant culture, because they know that, unfortunately, so many

00:10:40.300 Canadians or so many politicians want to do away with the Canadian culture. Now, when it comes to

00:10:45.140 that statue, it's, it's, it's work, I'm from Brampton, and I know that's in Brampton. That,

00:10:51.120 to me, is absurd as well, too. Because the reality is this, is that I, you know, believe in religious

00:10:56.140 freedom, right? I want anybody who, you know, I don't want Hindus to be, of course, kept from coming to

00:11:02.940 the country, necessarily. That's not the case at all. However, the reality is, now, if you are

00:11:07.860 somebody in Brampton, you have this massive statue that you almost can't avoid. It's like, you know,

00:11:13.060 55 foot tall. It's, there is this, it's basically Brampton saying, the, the, the God we worship here

00:11:21.000 is a Hindu God. I can't imagine that if some other religious group wanted to establish that, that would

00:11:26.400 be okay. I can't imagine that that would be tolerated. But because it seems like we are okay

00:11:31.680 respecting any other religion, except for the traditional Christian religion in Canada, then

00:11:37.100 that, that's okay. And again, it's, this stuff is going to keep happening if Canada continues to reject

00:11:41.900 its own cultural heritage. No, that's a really good point. Like, I, I completely agree with the

00:11:46.760 religious freedom aspect of it. I think that Hindus should be able to pray however they want. I'm glad

00:11:51.300 that they have that freedom in Canada. I'm very happy that they come. In so many ways, Hindus are model

00:11:55.580 citizens. But there is something political, like a statement being made by erecting a statue of that

00:12:00.620 size happening. It's like a mis, misreading of the tone of the country. Like everyone else's

00:12:05.440 statues are getting torn and you're erecting this, this large statue. You can, you can draw some like

00:12:09.680 historical parallels to that. But if anything, it's just a little bit like distasteful or disrespectful

00:12:14.360 in, in Canada. But, you know, I, I think you're right. I think that, that newcomers have sort of lost 1.00

00:12:20.780 the, the respect and Canadians, it's, it's, it's our fault. We haven't, especially our elites and those

00:12:25.760 in charge haven't demanded that newcomers respect Canada and, and come to terms with the fact that

00:12:30.780 there is a dominant culture. I thought it was interesting, Samuel, you might not have heard

00:12:34.960 this, but there was a proposal to make December Christian Heritage Month in Canada so that Canadians

00:12:40.580 can learn about Christianity and the traditions that actually helped find this, found this country,

00:12:45.140 like a country was based on Christian morals and values. And it was rejected. And if you look at the

00:12:51.620 list of all of the other heritage months that we celebrate in Canada, they're, you know, November

00:12:55.680 is actually Hindu Heritage Month and like every other culture and every other country and other

00:12:59.640 other religion gets a month or at least a week or a day to celebrate their heritage. And when it comes

00:13:04.240 to the founding religion of this country, no, you can't, you can't have that. Yeah. And you know, 0.94

00:13:10.040 you know, our very, of the official model of Canada is explicitly Christian, right? It has come from 0.99

00:13:16.100 Psalm 72, right? From dominion to dominion, that's referring to Christ, lordship and kingship,

00:13:21.260 over Canada. And yet here we are rejecting this and we rather have, and you know, speaking of

00:13:26.000 doing away with Henry Dundas because he supposedly was a, you know, wasn't a real abolitionist. Well,

00:13:32.080 here's the issue. I mean, let's face it. There have been a lot of atrocities that has happened under a

00:13:37.660 lot of Hindu pagan worship. And here we are though, choosing a pagan god to, you know, to be erected in

00:13:44.520 Brampton while, as you said, in terms of, you know, while we're, you know, doing away with some

00:13:49.060 historical figures that mean a lot to Canada, we're saying that, well, they should be canceled,

00:13:53.940 but we should celebrate Hindu gods that again, in the name of worshiping them, so many atrocities

00:14:00.040 have happened under these gods as well. It's absolutely absurd. But again, while we continue

00:14:04.720 to reject the Christian traditional history that has made Canada what it is, we are going to have a 1.00

00:14:11.920 very different Canada. And we're seeing that.

00:14:13.520 It's so true how they sort of whitewash the crimes and the real dark parts of history from other

00:14:20.080 cultures, and only focus on the dark moments in Canadian history, which really aren't that dark

00:14:26.100 compared to some of the histories of the rest of the world. Well, Samuel, I always really appreciate

00:14:30.140 talking to you. I love your perspective. I love hearing from you. So thank you so much. And I hope

00:14:33.880 you have a wonderful Christmas with your new and growing family. God bless you. And thank you for joining

00:14:38.640 us. Thank you so much. All right. Thanks for tuning in. I'm Candace Malcolm, and this is the Candace

00:14:43.600 Malcolm Show.

The Candice Malcolm Show - December 19, 2023

Do black Canadians support the renaming of Dundas Square？

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