Why it’s called Confederation Bridge — and why the push to rename it isn’t surprising
Final week, the P.E.I. Legislature unanimously handed a movement urging the federal authorities to alter the title of the Confederation Bridge to Epekwitk Crossing.
However that title, and the talk surrounding it, are nothing new. In truth, it was the popular alternative of a panel headed by former Island premier Alex Campbell, who in 1996 picked it out of a shortlist of three names drawn from hundreds of submissions from all throughout Canada.
“Span of Inexperienced Gables, Spud Freeway, Abegweit, Confederation Bridge, the Mounted Hyperlink — there [were] many names for it,” stated Raymond Sewell, an English professor at St. Mary’s College.
In 2014, Sewell submitted his grasp’s thesis on the historical past of the bridge, its title and what it meant for Canadian and Island identification.
Sewell, a Mi’kmaw man from the Pabineau First Nation in New Brunswick, stated he selected that topic as a result of he is at all times been fascinated with how names and symbols form how Indigenous folks, Islanders and Canadians see themselves.
He stated these issues have been prescient.
“Again then, I had a hunch that sooner or later could be renamed,” he stated.
“Whenever you title it after one thing like Confederation that was so damaging, in fact persons are going to need to change it. Sooner or later, the zeitgeist, the sensation of the time, the spirit of time, goes to alter. I do not assume the spirit of the time is as colonial because it was.”
The which means of Confederation
Campbell’s naming panel was tasked to pick out a reputation based mostly on 4 standards. It needed to:
- Replicate traditionally vital websites or occasions;
- Be vital for the native area or the remainder of Canada;
- If named in honour of a Canadian, the particular person had to be deceased;
- Human ideas corresponding to peace and friendship could be welcomed within the proposals.
Three names ended up on the shortlist: Northumberland Strait Bridge, Confederation Bridge and Abegweit Crossing.
Abegweit is the anglicized spelling of Epekwitk, the title for P.E.I. within the Mi’kmaw language. It means “cradled on the waves.”
“[My father described it] as a feather, or one thing floating on the waves,” Sewell stated.
“I don’t know who Prince Edward is. However after I’m on the land and I look over there, I see Epekwitk, you already know? It is so lovely. It describes the geological options.”
However the federal authorities was not certain by the panel’s suggestion. On Sept. 27, 1996, Public Works Minister Diane Marleau introduced the construction could be named Confederation Bridge, which a newspaper article on the time factors out was the most typical suggestion in all however two provinces.
With assist from opposition leaders in addition to P.E.I. senators, Premier Dennis King launched a movement Friday urging the federal authorities to alter the title of Confederation Bridge to Epekwitk Crossing. 2:00
Wayne Easter, then the MP for Malpeque, stated within the Home of Commons on the time that the title was an acknowledgement of the “essential function P.E.I. has performed in Canada’s wealthy historical past.”
Sewell wrote in his thesis that by selecting that title, the federal authorities shifted the dynamic from the area and towards the federation, and was the proper alternative to bolster a story of Canadian-ness which started with that historic occasion.
“The phrase ‘confederation’ [means] a sovereign union coming along with a standard motion or objective. On this case, it was the scourge and removing of Indigenous folks from the continent,” he stated.
“Confederation just isn’t benign. On this context, it is excessive. It is celebrating the daddies of Confederation coming collectively to destroy setting, sources — you already know, Indigenous intellectualism. So for me, it meant every thing then and it means every thing now.”
Ended ‘half-baked and momentary measures’
Godfrey Baldacchino, the previous Canada analysis chair of Island Research on the College of P.E.I., stated in an electronic mail the selection could have held a particular significance because of the federal authorities’s dedication to “steady and common communication” between the Island and the mainland, first made when the opposite companions have been making an attempt to get P.E.I. to affix Confederation within the late nineteenth century.
The fastened hyperlink “presumably put an finish to the half-baked and momentary measures that had been offered for 124 years,” he stated.
However Baldacchino stated the title change proposed final week additionally holds a particular significance, because it displays the observe of the area’s Indigenous folks, who for hundreds of years crossed to and from the Island. He thinks Islanders will ultimately all heat as much as the brand new title.
“The brand new title displays, as naming at all times does, up to date issues, attitudes and values,” stated UPEI historian Ed MacDonald in an electronic mail to CBC Information.
“I daresay renaming the bridge will not belittle the significance of Confederation — for good and for sick — in our collective historical past.”
The massive debate
Again in 1996, the reception to the newly introduced title of “Confederation Bridge” was the topic of some controversy.
“It is going to be straightforward to recollect as a result of everybody connects Prince Edward Island with Confederation.” stated one Islander interviewed by CBC Information shortly after the title was chosen. “I feel it is a very becoming title. Very applicable.”
“Do not you assume you possibly can dig down deeper, discover one thing higher?” stated one other.
Keptin John Joe Sark even led a public marketing campaign to get the bridge renamed, saying if the federal government did not accomplish that, he and different religious leaders of the Indigenous neighborhood would sail underneath the bridge to “title it or curse it.”
“It is a title that has been superimposed on the folks of this province,” he informed CBC Information in 1996.
“Why ought to politicians in Ottawa who know little or no about our historical past and our tradition confer upon themselves the privilege of naming such a significant hyperlink to our province?”
“I feel there was fairly lots of people that needed the title Abegweit because the title for the bridge,” stated Donald Stewart, who lives in Charlottetown.
Divisive mission
Stewart was one of many many activists who opposed the bridge’s building mainly on environmental grounds. He stated that again then, every thing that needed to do with the bridge was divisive.
In 1988, the province held a public plebiscite wanting into whether or not the bridge ought to be constructed. Sixty per cent of Islanders voted for it. Building begun in late 1993, and it opened in 1997.
“[The bridge] created an important debate amongst Islanders. Each Islander had an opinion on it, and it was a superb subject of debate,” Stewart stated.
“We obtained to consider what we thought was essential on Prince Edward Island, and what we thought was essential about Prince Edward Island.”
Stewart stated he regularly got here round to acknowledge the bridge was a superb factor for P.E.I. Now, he’d be OK with one other change.
“I’m completely in favour of the title change,” he stated. “I feel it is a great alternative to assist our Indigenous languages and it reveals respect and significance of the language.”
A easy gesture
When he was youthful, Sewell continuously travelled throughout the bridge. He is sufficiently old that he nonetheless remembers taking the ferry along with his father earlier than the span was constructed, and the way extra handy the bridge is.
He did not assume a lot in regards to the bridge’s title or what it meant again then. However he stated that for the younger Indigenous folks and youngsters of the longer term, the easy gesture of renaming it will make a world of distinction.
“If I used to be that child driving round, and I appeared and I noticed the names of my place within the conventional names, I’d really feel so so blissful and included,” he stated.
“To see the normal names is sort of a Easter egg hunt for me … I can perceive my space via the normal nomenclature. I do know a baby would really feel that.”
