Gatineau's street names should reflect city's Black history, researcher argues

Gabrielle Huston · CBC News

· Posted: Apr 28, 2025 4:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: 9 minutes ago

Out of thousands of streets successful Gatineau, Que., truthful fewer are named aft Black radical that you could number them connected 1 hand, according to a governmental subject researcher urging the metropolis to marque changes.

Patrice Emery Bakong, a Ph.D campaigner astatine the Université de Montréal who's based successful the occidental Quebec city, investigated however galore streets and different nationalist places successful Quebec are named aft Black people.

He was amazed to find they were truthful poorly represented, considering that arsenic of 2021 Black radical make up astir 10 per cent of Gatineau's population.

"It's lone a substance of justice, due to the fact that we are each radical of Gatineau," said Bakong. "I person 2 young children ... and I privation them to person thing they tin clasp onto."

Bakong reached retired to metropolis unit to talk about however they tin beryllium much inclusive of the Black community, and is slated to present his probe to city council connected Monday.

"I privation to alteration the rules [about] however the streets and nationalist spaces are named aft people," Bakong said. 

Just 2 streets, 1 alley, 1 park

According to Bakong's research, 2 streets, 1 parkland and 1 alley successful Gatineau are named aft Black Canadians:

• La Ruelle and Le Parc Jean-Gardy-Bienvenu are named aft a 12-year-old lad who drowned in Montreal.
• Rue Jean-Alfred is named aft the archetypal Black subordinate of the National Assembly of Quebec.
• Rue Oxford is named aft London Oxford, the archetypal Black settler successful the Ottawa Valley.

Recognition similar this is vital, said Gatineau's lone Black councillor, Bettyna Bélizaire.

"It's astir a consciousness of belonging," she said.

"There are a batch of radical from African descent that person helped physique the Quebec that we cognize today, and their names request to beryllium recognized." 

Gatineau has seen its Black assemblage turn importantly successful the past 20 years, Bélizaire added, making it doubly important to admit them.

Struggles and solutions

A question of Black radical immigrated to Gatineau astir the commencement of the 21st century, Bakong said, and the colonisation has kept increasing since then.

But since that colonisation is comparatively young compared to different demographics, there's a unsocial obstruction to getting designation connected nationalist infrastructure, Bakong said.

In Quebec, radical indispensable beryllium dormant for astatine slightest a twelvemonth earlier thing tin beryllium named aft them — a regularisation Bakong thinks should go.

"It's not just for Black people," helium said.

One mode astir the rule, Bélizaire argued, is to usage the names of Black radical whose power was international.

And she and Bakong some suggested utilizing different words alternatively of names, similar "Négritude," a taste and governmental question among French-speaking Black people.

Coun. Isabelle N. Miron, vice-president of the Gatineau Toponymy Committee, told Radio-Canada successful French they've strived to beforehand inclusivity.

Those efforts, Miron said, person included renaming Rue Amherst — which honoured a arguable British wide whose bequest regarding Indigenous radical has agelong been debated — to Rue Wigwàs, which means "white birch" successful Anishinabeg.

The aforesaid efforts should be made for the Black community, she said.

Bélizaire said it's important to guarantee residents know they tin suggest names. The metropolis reviews submissions, she said, and cultivates a database to usage for aboriginal projects.

One Black person's sanction is connected that database now: Marielle Lapaix, a businesswoman who was known arsenic the "grandmother of the full Haitian assemblage successful Gatineau."

If the one-year regularisation was dropped, Bélizaire suggested honouring erstwhile metropolis councillor Mireille Apollon, a recipient of the Order of Gatineau and the Prix québécois de la citoyenneté.

"I would emotion to spot her sanction connected a thoroughfare 1 day," Bélizaire said.