Reconciliation Starts With Remembering: What Indian Road Taught Me
In light of the upcoming motion to rename Indian Road, I wanted to share the journey that shaped my understanding of reconciliation and how it intersects with this neighbourhood. What follows isn't just about a street name — it's about how we remember, how we include others, and how we move forward with honesty and respect.
My journey trying to understand reconciliation
I first met Laurel Claus-Johnson, Bear Clan Mohawk Elder, founding member of the Katarokwi Grandmothers' Council and longtime advocate for Indigenous community, education, and reconciliation, by chance, during my very first City Council campaign in 2013. At the time, I was just another candidate knocking on doors. We exchanged a few words, nothing more. But sometimes, in politics, as in life, the most important conversations come back around when you're finally ready to hear them.
In 2017, the question of renaming Indian Road emerged for the first time during my tenure. The name, long taken for granted by many, had become the focus of concern. That's when I remembered Laurel. I reached out — and that's when my real education began.
Laurel didn't just give me her opinion — she opened a door. She shared with me her own perspectives as an Indigenous leader and then went further: she handed me a list of 13 people — Elders, knowledge keepers, and community members — whose voices, she believed, needed to be heard on the matter.
I called them all.
Five never answered or replied to voice mails I left, despite multiple attempts. Three told me clearly: "Yes, the name is offensive. It should be changed." Another three said something different, words to the effect: "This isn't an issue we're involved in. Our focus is elsewhere." And then there were the last three — the ones who changed how I see the world.
They didn't give me a straight answer. Instead, they gave me something deeper: they spoke about the principle, "Nothing about us without us."
At first, I didn't grasp the full weight of those words. But the more I listened, the more I understood: this phrase isn't just a slogan. It's a shield. A boundary. A demand for dignity. It's a deeply anti-colonial stance — a way of reclaiming agency after centuries of decisions made for Indigenous peoples, but rarely with them.
What they were saying was this: don't make decisions about Indigenous names, stories, or symbols without involving the people most impacted. And more than that — don't repeat, even in subtle or symbolic form, the patterns of erasure and paternalism that caused such harm in the first place.
I came to realize that many who hold to "nothing about us without us" aren't asking for special treatment. They're asking that no one else — no other group, no other community — experience what they have: a loss of voice, identity, and control over their own story.
And in this case, their advice surprised me. They said: "Ask the people on Indian Road. Let them decide. Don't impose the weight of our experience on them. Respect their voice, too."
This was not the reaction I expected. But it was one that struck me as profoundly wise — and incredibly generous. It reflected not only a deep understanding of history, but a powerful refusal to perpetuate cycles of domination, even in reverse.
That experience marked a turning point in my understanding of reconciliation. It's not just about symbols, names, or even policies. It's about power — and who holds it. It's about learning to listen, deeply and without presumption. And above all, it's about the courage to step back when the impulse is to act, to create space when history has taught us to take it.
I'm still learning. But thanks to Laurel — and the voices she pointed me toward — I now know that reconciliation is not something you deliver. It's something you're invited into, on someone else's terms. And that is a lesson I will carry with me always.
From consultation to connection — a deeper journey into Indigenous truth
If Laurel Claus-Johnson opened the door to my education on Indigenous experience, it was Sol Mamakwa, Anishinaabe MPP for Kiiwetinoong, Deputy Leader of the Ontario NDP, and pioneering advocate for Indigenous rights, language revitalization, and northern health equity, who walked me through it.
In 2022, I had the rare opportunity to spend two and a half days with Sol — Member of Provincial Parliament for Kiiwetinoong and a residential school survivor. We were paired for an episode of TVO's Political Blind Date, but what unfolded wasn't just a media experiment. It was a reckoning. It was, for me, a step into the deeper waters of truth, where the history I had read about in books came alive through the eyes, memories, and grief of people who had lived it.
We began in Kingston, walking the same ground where Sir John A. Macdonald's statue once stood. I'd long wrestled with that monument — not because I denied the harms of his legacy, but because I believed we should add to our historical understanding, not erase it. Sol didn't push back with anger. Instead, he listened. Then he brought me into dialogue.
He introduced me to Indigenous leaders — some who felt the statue should remain as a symbol of painful truth, others who wanted it removed, and still others who believed the question wasn't about metal and marble at all, but about what lives on in the systems and attitudes those statues once celebrated. The lesson was clear: no single opinion represents all Indigenous voices. And that complexity itself demands respect.
But it was in Sioux Lookout, on Sol's home territory, that the learning cut deepest.
There, I sat across from Garnet Angeconeb, Anishinaabe residential school survivor, journalist, founding board member of the Aboriginal Healing Foundation, and advocate for healing, reconciliation, and residential school survivors in northern Ontario. Garnet told me how he watched his parents row away after dropping him off — how he strained to hold on to even the ripples on the water, knowing it was the last trace of their presence. His voice cracked. Mine did too.
I've always been someone drawn to history in theory — reading, analyzing, debating. But no amount of theory prepared me for what I felt when Garnet Angeconeb spoke about the day he was taken from his parents. That moment didn't feel like learning — it felt like witnessing a wound. The pain wasn't abstract. It was personal. It was the breaking of a bond between parent and child, community and culture, memory and survival. And in that instant, I understood: reconciliation isn't an idea to be discussed — it's a reality to be felt, carried, and honoured.
Throughout the trip, Sol introduced me to people who had every reason to be bitter, yet instead offered wisdom. Some talked about Anishinaabe law and the need for a nation-to-nation relationship. Others showed how Indigenous legal systems were not only real, but forcibly suppressed — lawyers disbarred for helping, nations denied legal standing unless they renounced their identity. The history we teach is so thin journey was a lesson I had first glimpsed years earlier: "Nothing about us without us." It's not just a principle — it's a protection. A resistance to being erased, co-opted, or acted upon without consent. It's also a gift: those who hold to that principle don't just want a voice for themselves — they want to prevent anyone, ever again, from being silenced or sidelined in the way they were.
And when it came to reconciliation, the meaning became clearer with every person I met.
For Chief Donald Maracle, longstanding Chief (since 1991) of the Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte, acclaimed for leading transformative community development — including housing expansion, water infrastructure, land claim settlements, and heritage preservation — and a powerful advocate for Indigenous self-governance, health equity, and nation-to-nation relations, reconciliation is not a symbolic gesture. It is not about tearing things down — it's about building understanding up. He told us plainly: you can remove a statue, but that doesn't remove what truly matters — the legacy, the harm, and the lessons we still haven't fully absorbed. From him I heard reconciliation means more education, not less. More remembering, not more forgetting. He spoke of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's Call to Action for curriculum reform, for teaching all Canadians the real story of this country — not a romanticized narrative, but one rooted in inclusion, truth, and consequence.
And for Garnet Angeconeb, reconciliation is about the validation of a living history — his history. It is about knowing that the stories of trauma and survival will not be buried again. That the ripple he saw vanish in the lake the day he was taken from his parents might finally ripple outward again, as understanding, justice, and healing. He told me, gently but powerfully, that reconciliation begins by looking into the eyes of our children and grandchildren and ensuring they know the truth — so that they can carry it forward with strength.
When our journey ended, Sol told me, "You owe it to your children and grandchildren to make sure they know the real history." I carry that with me now. Not as a burden — but as a responsibility. Because if reconciliation means anything, it means we stop repeating the harm. And to do that, we need not just words. We need witnesses. We need relationships. And we need to keep going — with more courage, more listening, and more remembering than ever before.
A forgotten tribute: the story behind the street names
Seventy years ago, when the streets around Indian Road were first carved into the landscape, a developer made a bold and — at the time — quietly visionary choice. He named the roads not for his own family or for colonial royalty, but to honour the presence, contributions, and histories of Indigenous peoples. One long-time resident told me these names were deliberately chosen to reflect Indigenous themes and to preserve memory. It's possible the developer had Indigenous ancestry himself, or had married into an Indigenous family — either way, it would help explain the depth of respect embedded in these choices. This developer was not just ahead of his time — he was fifty years ahead of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's Calls to Action.
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission calls on us to acknowledge, understand, and preserve Indigenous histories — especially those long silenced or distorted by institutions like the residential school system. Seen through that lens, the naming of these streets wasn't just symbolic — it was a quiet act of reconciliation, offered decades before that word entered our national vocabulary. At a time when few were listening, this developer chose to honour Indigenous presence and story. That kind of vision — humble, respectful, and ahead of its time — is itself something worth remembering.
At the centre of this story is Indian Road — the origin point, both literally and figuratively, of a small network of streets whose names gesture to Indigenous presence and contributions. Streets like Arrowhead Place, Champlain Avenue, Algonquin Terrace, and Mohawk Place all descend from Indian Road, not just topographically but thematically. They are tributaries from a common source.
Arrowhead Place, for instance, refers to HMCS Arrowhead, a Flower Class corvette that served in WWII in which Indigenous sailors served. But the meaning may go even deeper. The arrowhead is also a flowering plant known to have been used by some Indigenous communities for medicinal purposes. Strength and healing — military and medicine — both quietly encoded in the name.
Champlain Avenue, Algonquin Terrace, and Mohawk Place together evoke a period of conflict during which Champlain, with Algonquin allies, fought the Mohawk. But today, these nations are not enemies. They work together — on language, governance, environmental stewardship, and shared priorities. The streets that once might have echoed ancient divisions now stand in peaceful coexistence, just like the people they reference. There is a quiet lesson in that: reconciliation is possible, not by forgetting, but by remembering differently.
Yet only Indian Road — the root from which these names spring — is being proposed for renaming. One resident, who self-identified as having Indigenous ancestry, told me this would be an injustice, not because change is wrong, but because this change risks erasing the last visible layer of meaning. A better way forward, they suggested, would be to rediscover and teach these histories — perhaps through public monuments or interpretive signage in nearby parks — so that residents and children can learn not just who lived here, but how our shared story has unfolded.
Rather than erase these names, we could illuminate their meaning, deepening public understanding and honoring a past that still lives in the present.
The original developer may not have said much at the time nor that his choice of words would fall out of favour linguistically 50 years later — but his choices spoke clearly. He saw a truth we're only now beginning to grasp: that reconciliation begins not with renaming, but with remembering well.
I share all this not to relive the past, but to inform how we approach the future. Before we decide to erase a name like Indian Road, we must ask whether we're also erasing a quiet act of early reconciliation — one that predates national conversations and calls to action. Rather than rename, I believe we should reclaim: tell the story, honour its intent, and use it to teach future generations what reconciliation can truly look like.