Bob Mackin
Vancouver city hall rubber-stamped the renaming of Trutch Street on June 17 after keeping the program secret for years.
In September 2022, the Musqueam Indian Band proposed a new name for the street, from the surname of B.C.’s controversial first lieutenant-governor to “šxʷməθkʷəy ̓ əmasəm,” or Musqueamview Street. It held a ceremony with then-Mayor Kennedy Stewart.
Design for the new signs replacing Trutch Street in Vancouver (Pete Fry/City of Vancouver)
When theBreaker.news sought an update almost a year later, and with Mayor Ken Sim’s ABC party in power, bureaucrats at 12th and Cambie demanded payment of $270 for briefing notes and reports about the feasibility, logistics and cost/benefit analysis for renaming. theBreaker.news wanted to know about changing the signs, changing the name on maps and in databases for Canada Post, ICBC and BC Hydro.
Kevin Tuerlings in the information and privacy office claimed it would take 12 hours to search, compile and process the records. He suggested in a Sept. 16, 2023 letter to narrow the request to “feasibility, logistics and cost/benefit analysis,” because records held by Engineering Strategy and Standards could be found within three hours.
theBreaker.news agreed. But, on Dec. 5, 2023, city hall opted to withhold all responsive records.
A letter said the city feared disclosure could harm intergovernmental relations or Indigenous self-governance or treaty negotiations. It also feared release of the information could cause “damage to or interfere with the conservation of fossil sites, natural sites, valuable anthropological or heritage sites, or endangered, threatened, vulnerable or rare living resources.”
The renaming of Trutch Street was communicated to the public as an act of reconciliation and the signs are created by the city’s sign shop of synthetic material.
After City of Victoria decided to rename its Trutch Street as “Su’it Street,” Victoria city hall disclosed records, showing $3,124 in costs to change the name, including $900 in payments to three local First Nations members for attending the 2022 renaming ceremony.
Vancouver’s sign shop was already printing signs the weekend before the council vote and an unveiling ceremony was already scheduled for June 20, the day before National Indigenous Peoples Day.
Prior to Sir Joseph William Trutch representing Queen Victoria in B.C. from 1871 1876, he was the B.C. land commissioner who reduced the size of Indian reserves.
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