Trutch Street, in Vancouver, B.C., is named after one of the most notorious racist politicians in British Columbia's history. Joseph Trutch, who served as colonial B.C.'s land commissioner in the 1860s, has streets named after him in Vancouver and Victoria.

Trutch believed Indigenous peoples were “utter savages living along the coast, frequently committing murder and robbery amongst themselves, one tribe upon another, and on white people who go amongst them for the purpose of trade.”

He went back on the B.C. government's policy to negotiate treaties with Indigenous peoples under the Royal Proclamation, forced Indigenous peoples onto reserve land, and significantly decreased the size of the reserve lands on which Indigenous peoples were permitted to live.

His legacy is not one that deserves to be memorialized today.

This is a demand to Vancouver's city council to reconsider the naming of Trutch Street and to remove the name of a notorious racist political leader from the city's infrastructure.

A new name for the street should be decided in consultation with local Indigenous peoples.