Tag Archives: Oscar Peterson

| Montreal, Slow News Day

Do it for Oscar

Because they have nothing better to do, Mike Citrome’s band of history-rewriters are to descend on the Sud-Ouest borough council meeting tonight to demand they change the name of Lionel-Groulx metro to Oscar Peterson, a campaign that has already gained national attention because it’s being organized on (gasp) Facebook.

Date: Tuesday, March 4
Time: 6:30pm
Location: Sud-Ouest borough hall
815 rue Bel-Air, about three blocks west of the station

And if you can’t come up with an opinion on your own, feel free to check out what other random uninformed people think.

No word yet on whether there will be a counter-protest from the anti-name-change group.

Previously: Oscar Peterson metro won’t be easy to accomplish

| Montreal, Opinion, Slow News Day

Oscar Peterson metro won’t be easy to accomplish

The local media have been all over plagiarizing The Gazette reporting on a Facebook group that advocates renaming the Lionel-Groulx metro station after Oscar Peterson. Groulx was a racist, the suggestion goes, and Peterson would be much more befitting of a metro station name.

The group has exploded in popularity, due to both the media coverage and regular word-of-mouth. It has over 1,000 members now.

The idea isn’t new, actually. It’s been going around for quite some time. Other proposed new names for Lionel-Groulx include Yitzhak-Rabin and Gabrielle-Roy.

Unfortunately, it’s somewhat of a non-starter for two reasons:

  1. The Lionel-Groulx metro, like most metro stations, is actually named after a street nearby, namely Lionel-Groulx Ave.
  2. The STM currently has a moratorium in place against station renaming, thanks to the rather unpopular Longueuil-Université-de-Sherbrooke mess.

And that doesn’t get into the whole mess about renaming something from a francophone name to an anglophone one.

Personally, I think it should be renamed The-Jackal.

UPDATE (Feb. 28): The inevitable backlash group has already been formed.

UPDATE: Elsewhere in the blogosphere: