Calgary historian weighs in on Langevin Bridge name change

What's in a name? Calgary's Langevin Bridge has a new one: Reconciliation Bridge.

The bridge was built in 1910 and named after Hector-Louis Langevin, a Father of Confederation.

Councillors voted Monday to change the name because of the role Langevin played in establishing Canada's residential school system.

Calgary historian Harry Sanders joined theHomestretch this week to share his thoughts on the name change.

Q: What do you think of the decision to rename the bridge?

A: I think it's a good one. I've made a little study of the reasons behind the name of the bridge originally, but I'm OKwith this change. I think it's a good gesture and it can go some distance to taking away a name that has become hurtful to survivors of residential schools and make a gesture towards reconciliation.

Q: Why is Langevin seen as such a divisive figure?

A: He was briefly the Superintendent General of Indian Affairs as it was called in 1868-1869. He went on to become the public works minister. It was in that capacity that he got the bridge named after him, because he was almost certainly the very first federal cabinet minister to visit Calgary, and Calgarians gave him a dinner, and celebrated him, and presented him with a petition to build us a bridge, and he did.

In 1883, his department was building three new Indian industrial schools in the Northwest Territories. He was making the case in the House of Commons, making the case for the government's policy. He's one of many in the government that had this policy, but his speech was quoted in the Truth and Reconciliation Report, so that places him firmly in the public mind with respect to the issue.

In order to educate "the children properly we must separate them from their families. Some people may say that this is hard but if we want to civilize them we must do that."-Hector Langevin, Public Works Minister of Canada, 1883

Q: Why the focus on Langevin?

You can make the case that with Langevin, we got the wrong guy. Circumstances have lined up to the focus on Sir Hector-Louis Langevin. Historically speaking, he's not the sole figure. If you walked into the cabinet room in the 1880s, and went, "okay, who's responsible here [for the residential schools]," you wouldn't have necessarily picked him. Butthe way circumstances have aligned, the focus is on him and this bridge was named for him.

As for the strong link between his name and the bridge ... it's not compelling stuff. And the original wooden bridge was replaced with the steelstructure in 1910, and then a few months later they tore down the oldLangevinBridge and sold it for firewood.TheAlbertan, which is now the[Calgary]Sun, made the case at that time that we don't need that name anymore. They were pushing for the name, the Riverside Bridge.

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