OttawaSo few of the western Quebec city’s streets are named after Black people that you could count them on one hand, according to one Ph.D. candidate who’ll be presenting his research today at city hall.’A matter of justice,’ says Ph.D candidate Patrice Emery BakongGabrielle Huston · CBC News · Posted: Apr 28, 2025 4:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: 3 hours agoPatrice Emery Bakong is a political science researcher based in Gatineau, Que., who studied how Quebec’s Black communities were reflected in the naming of streets and public spaces. He’ll be sharing his research Monday with Gatineau city council. (Jodie Applewaithe/CBC)Out of thousands of streets in Gatineau, Que., so few are named after Black people that you could count them on one hand, according to a political science researcher urging the city to make changes.Patrice Emery Bakong, a Ph.D candidate at the Université de Montréal who’s based in the western Quebec city, investigated how many streets and other public places in Quebec are named after Black people.He was surprised to find they were so poorly represented, considering that as of 2021 Black people make up around 10 per cent of Gatineau’s population.”It’s only a matter of justice, because we are all people of Gatineau,” said Bakong. “I have two young children … and I want them to have something they can hold onto.”Bakong reached out to city staff to talk about how they can be more inclusive of the Black community, and is slated to present his research to city council on Monday.”I want to change the rules [about] how the streets and public spaces are named after people,” Bakong said. Rue Jean-Alfred, one of the few Gatineau streets to reflect the Black community, commemorates Jean Alfred, the first Black person elected to the National Assembly of Quebec. (Felix Desroches/Radio-Canada)Just 2 streets, one alley, one parkAccording to Bakong’s research, two streets, one park and one alley in Gatineau are named after Black Canadians: La Ruelle and Le Parc Jean-Gardy-Bienvenu are named after a 12-year-old boy who drowned in Montreal. Rue Jean-Alfred is named after the first Black member of the National Assembly of Quebec. Rue Oxford is named after London Oxford, the first Black settler in the Ottawa Valley. Recognition like this is vital, said Gatineau’s only Black councillor, Bettyna Bélizaire.”It’s about a sense of belonging,” she said.”There are a lot of people from African descent that have helped build the Quebec that we know today, and their names need to be recognized.” Gatineau has seen its Black community grow significantly in the last 20 years, Bélizaire added, making it doubly important to recognize them.Coun. Bettyna Bélizaire said the city has changed in recent years to be more diverse in its name choices, but added that progress can be frustratingly slow. (Rosalie Sinclair/Radio-Canada)Struggles and solutionsA wave of Black people immigrated to Gatineau around the start of the 21st century, Bakong said, and the population has kept growing since then.But since that population is relatively young compared to other demographics, there’s a unique barrier to getting recognition on public infrastructure, Bakong said.In Quebec, people must be dead for at least a year before something can be named after them — a rule Bakong thinks should go.”It’s not fair for Black people,” he said.One way around the rule, Bélizaire argued, is to use the names of Black people whose influence was international.And she and Bakong both suggested using other words instead of names, like “Négritude,” a cultural and political movement among French-speaking Black people.The Gatineau Toponymy Committee is striving to be inclusive with its naming choices, said Orée-du-Parc Coun. Isabelle N. Miron, the committee’s vice-president. (Laurie Trudel/Radio-Canada)Coun. Isabelle N. Miron, vice-president of the Gatineau Toponymy Committee, told Radio-Canada in French they’ve strived to promote inclusivity.Those efforts, Miron said, have included renaming Rue Amherst — which honoured a controversial British general whose legacy regarding Indigenous people has long been debated — to Rue Wigwàs, which means “white birch” in Anishinabeg.The same efforts should be made for the Black community, she said.Bélizaire said it’s important to ensure residents know they can propose names. The city reviews submissions, she said, and cultivates a list to use for future projects.One Black person’s name is on that list now: Marielle Lapaix, a businesswoman who was known as the “grandmother of the entire Haitian community in Gatineau.”If the one-year rule was dropped, Bélizaire suggested honouring former city councillor Mireille Apollon, a recipient of the Order of Gatineau and the Prix québécois de la citoyenneté.”I would love to see her name on a street one day,” Bélizaire said. ABOUT THE AUTHORGabrielle is an Ottawa-based journalist with eclectic interests. She’s spoken to video game developers, city councillors, neuroscientists and small business owners alike. Reach out to her for any reason at gabrielle.huston@cbc.ca.Follow Gabrielle on BlueskyFollow Gabrielle on InstagramWith files from CBC Radio’s Ottawa Morning and Radio-Canada’s Patrick Foucault
Gatineau’s street names should reflect city’s Black history, researcher argues
