Louis Riel Day – Monday, February 17. View holiday hours for City of Winnipeg facilities and services.
Background
Residents were encouraged to participate in public engagement opportunities throughout 2019, to provide feedback on ways to address the absence of Indigenous perspectives and history in the city’s place names and markers. The information below outlines key milestones of this process, which ended with the Welcoming Winnipeg: Reconciling our History Policy.
A few key outcomes of the 2019 public engagement process that you may want to consider when making a request:
- Participants expressed low support for removing historical markers. There was a shared belief between those who support removing markers and those who support keeping historical markers that context and education is a priority.
- With regards to new place names, participant support leaned towards prioritizing Indigenous names.
- Participants identified that the evaluation of requests should take into consideration if the group/person/event demonstrate a significant contribution in shaping a Welcoming Winnipeg. As a result, the Welcoming Winnipeg process will consider both Indigenous and non-Indigenous requests.
January 14, 2020
The public engagement report for Welcoming Winnipeg project is now available.
Community feedback, information from other cities, and Winnipeg’s current processes were considered in developing recommendations for Executive Policy EPC and Council consideration. An administrative report with recommendations will be submitted for review at a meeting of the Executive Policy Committee (EPC) on January 14, 2020.
The Public Service is recommending that all applications for the naming or re-naming of historical markers or place names be assessed under a common process through which:
- Applications will be reviewed by the Indigenous Relations Division (IRD) for completeness and conformity with the criteria set out in the Policy.
- Applications will then be reviewed by a new community member-based committee, composed of 50% Indigenous and 50% non-Indigenous members, with balanced representation of genders, LGBTG2Q/TS/NB persons, historians, archivists, researchers, Elders, and youth.
- This committee will forward its recommendations regarding each application to the Executive Policy Committee and Council for consideration.
Additionally, the Public Service will report back by the end of 2020 to report on learnings and challenges of the initial process to make further recommendations/enhancements.
As part of the decision-making and report review process, there is an opportunity for members of the public to appear as a delegation at the EPC meeting when the report is brought forward on January 14, 2020. The meeting agenda is now available online.
July 2019
The public’s feedback has identified that the community feels strongly about all the options to create new, to add to, and to remove various historical markers and place names. Phase 2 of this initiative included gathering input on a proposed nomination process and criteria for evaluation to guide how we move forward in reconciling our City’s history.
June 2019
On June 11, 2019, the Executive Policy Committee received an update on Welcoming Winnipeg stating that the Public Service will report back to Council by September 2019, with its recommendation for a Welcoming Winnipeg policy and implementation plan. The updated report is now available. The feedback gathered through the public engagement process is currently being finalized and will be used to help inform the recommendations for further community input in the coming months.
January 2019
We asked residents to be a part of reconciling our story to ensure the Winnipeg of the future is welcoming to all.
The public was asked to join us on our Journey of Reconciliation and tell their story about a place in Winnipeg that is important to them by leaving a voice message, sending a written story, or recording their story.