William P. Hubbard was a great Torontonian. Born on the then outskirts of the city to former American slaves, Hubbard worked his way up from baker to cab driver and eventually became one of the most celebrated and influential politicians in the city. He’s credited as being “instrumental” in the creation of Toronto Hydro & Ontario Hydro.
In 1999 the City of Toronto honored him by creating the William P. Hubbard Award for Race Relations. The city’s website explains that the award is presented “to a person or persons whose outstanding achievement and commitment has made a significant contribution toward a positive race relations climate in Toronto.”
The award is a great idea in concept, and it’s gone to some great achievers including the first Black Canadian elected into the legislature, Kamala-Jean Gopie “a doer, not a chronic complainer”, and Samuel Getachew who recently wrote an interesting article praising Andray Domise.
But something has gone horribly wrong. This year’s Hubbard award is going to one of the most divisive groups in the city’s history that was co-founded by a supremacist who recently called an Ethiopian refugee a “coon”.
Yep, you guessed it, this year’s William P. Hubbard Award for Race Relations is going to Black Lives Matter Toronto!
It’s hard to imagine a group that has made a more negative “contribution toward a positive race relations climate in Toronto” than BLMTO. All of their actions have been divisive, from when they were marching with racists, to when they literally started a downtown fire and violently clashed with police & firefighters, to when they made up false accusations about the cops arresting a man because of his race, to their massively divisive protest during this year’s Pride parade.
If you look closely at the above screenshot from the Cty’s web page you might recognize Yusra Khogali. She’s the BLMTO co-founder who recently called an Ethiopian refugee a “coon”. She’s also written that white people are “sub huxman”, tweeted about killing white men, and has been investigated for posting chilling threats on her Facebook page targeting a police officer.
Tomorrow I’ll be attending City Hall’s award ceremony at 6:30pm. I’ll be watching closely which city councilors have the gall to stand up and praise BLMTO, and will report live on my Twitter account @Grenouf. If you’re downtown tomorrow evening and are interested in witnessing this assault on William P. Hubbard’s memory, the details for the event are available here.
And, as always, if you like my work and want to contribute towards my costs traveling to and covering stories like tomorrow’s messed-up awards ceremony, You can find my PayPal account here and my Patreon account here (any amount, no matter how small, is greatly welcome).
1 comments
‘It’s hard to imagine a group that has made a more negative “contribution toward a positive race relations climate in Toronto”’ – I can think of one: Toronto police