3^rd April 2022 – Peel District School Board (PDSB) has announced that they have approved a name change for Sir John A. Macdonald School located at 250 Centre Street North in Brampton. The school has been renamed to Nibi Emosaawdang Public School (NEPS).

As per the official statement released by the school board, this name change demonstrates PDSB’s commitment to dismantle oppressive practices and structures in service of our students, staff and community.

The new name of the school Nibi Emosawwdang (ni-bi e-mo-saw-dang) is from the Ojibwe nation and means ‘The Water Walker’.

The phrase is also the title of the award winning story of Ojibwe Nokomis who walked to raise awareness of our need to protect Nibi, i.e., water, for future generations and for all life on the planet.

PDSB will hold an official renaming ceremony in mid-April.

Several human rights and indigenous community groups have been raising their concerns over changing names of public institutions in a step towards Truth and Reconciliation.

Last year, several demonstrations took place in Toronto to advocate for a name change of the Ryerson University. Since then, it was decided that the university would move ahead with the name change. Please read the latest on this here.