Alberta city looks to cancel Bishop Grandin

St. Albert, Alta.’s naming committee has received an application requesting the late Bishop Vital Justin Grandin’s name be removed from a prominent downtown neighbourhood.

Grandin (1829-1902), a key architect of the Catholic Church’s presence in Western Canada, has seen his legacy attract heavy scrutiny for his role in the residential school system since the reported and yet-to-be-proven discovery of 215 unmarked graves near the Kamloops Indian Residential School on May 27, 2021. Grandin was a proponent of education for Indigenous peoples and supported residential schools, though he believed choice to attend should be left to parents.

If this request is fully sanctioned, replacements would likely be required for Grandin Road and Lane, Grandin Lakeside Village, Grandville Avenue and Place and Grandora Crescent and Park.

Cory Sinclair, the city’s manager of corporate communications and design, confirmed the city received the application and that it “met the threshold requirements detailed in the (Municipal Naming) policy. This policy stipulates that a designation could be removed if it refers to “current or historic persons known for their discriminatory views or actions,”   “negatively represents any group or its culture” or harms St. Albert ‘sreputation.

Historically, there were two residential schools located in the city. The St. Albert Youville Residential School was operational from 1873 to 1948, and the Edmonton Residential School from 1924-1968, which was located at what is now the Poundmaker’s Lodge Treatment Centres addiction treatment facility on the outskirts of St. Albert.

Sinclair said city administration is “currently designing and implementing a consultation and communication plan in accordance with the Naming Policy.” He added that the “naming committee will provide city council with a report and recommendation regarding the removal and renaming after the review and evaluation process is complete.”

A report and formal suggestions for the next steps are expected to be presented during the first quarter of 2025.

Recent precedent suggests Grandin’s name ultimately will be removed. After all, Greater St. Albert Catholic Schools unanimously voted to rename Vital Grandin School as Holy Family Catholic School. In the provincial capital city 25 minutes southeast, Edmonton Catholic School Division voted to rename Grandin School and remove a mural of the bishop to make way for Holy Child Catholic Elementary School.

The past several years have also seen schools, streets and transit stations renamed and murals removed across western Canada.

In the over three years since Kamloops, researchers, historians, lay organizations such as the Catholic Civil Rights League (CCRL) and Calgary Bishop Emeritus Frederick Henry have expressed skepticism over the widely-transmitted narrative and demanded verification of the claim of mass graves. 

Kennedy Hall, a Canadian Catholic author, made his latest contribution to this discourse by publishing “An Open Letter to the Bishops of Canada” in Crisis Magazine. The Ontarian’s dispatch urged “Canadian bishops to follow in the tradition of saints like Jean de Brébeuf and defend the Church from spurious attacks by the state.”

In an interview with The Catholic Register, Hall decried how bishops are not strongly responding to these cancellations, nor the vandalism or burning down of at least 85 Catholic parishes since 2021.

“If you found out that your father was sitting idly by while people who hated your family were just destroying your family name in public and taking down their graves and toppling their statues, you would have to assume there was maleficence somewhere,” said Hall. “It is not an accident. I don’t hear anything from the bishops, but when we do it is a weak statement. It is something like ‘well, we’re very troubled by this and we understand’… blah blah blah. It’s not a real statement.

“At some point, one of these men needs to stand up and say something.”