Discovery Day is no more in the city of St. John’s.
St. John’s city council voted 5-4 to no longer refer to the holiday has Discovery Day. For now, the city will refer to it as St. John’s Day until a round of public consultation decides what the best name will be for the day in the future.
Coun. Maggie Burton sparked the debate two weeks ago when she gave the notice of motion for the changes.
Mayor Danny Breen expressed concern over a lack of public consultation on the matter. But Burton says full-scale public consultations were not required to make the decision.
“There’s no need to pass the buck back to the community every time you want to make a small change. I don’t see this as being a big change at all,” she said.
“I talked to a lot of people during my own campaign about this, I heard it from the community, and I think it’s time to get that ball rolling.”
Council voted 5-4 in favour of the move, with Mayor Breen and councilors Wally Collins, Jamie Korab, and Sandy Hickman opposed. Councillors Deanne Stapleton and Debbie Hanlon were absent from the vote.
Breen says he voted against the motion not because he is personally opposed to the change, but rather because it’s not the city’s role to make such a change.
“It’s the process that’s a challenge for me. This is obviously an issue that’s a provincial responsibility and provincial jurisdiction,” said Breen.
“The premier made it known that he was open to having the discussion, so I didn’t think the city had the role to be involved in it.”
From here, the city will write a letter to the provincial government requesting a provincewide change to the name. Burton says she expects the St. John’s Native Friendship Centre will follow suit.
The provincial legislation does not list Discovery Day as a statutory holiday, though it is referred to by that name in the list of government holidays.
The holiday, given on the last Monday in June, largely exists through collective bargaining negotiations with public unions.
Premier Dwight Ball has stated he’s open to changing the name of the holiday, with input from Indigenous groups across the province.
Chief Mi’Sel Joe of the Miawpukek First Nation has spoken favourably of a name change, but said conversations with the province haven’t happened to date.
Burton maintains the holiday’s name implies John Cabot discovered Newfoundland and Labrador in 1497, which ignores the history of Indigenous people who had been living in the area for thousands of years before Cabot’s landing.
Cabot wasn’t even the first European to land in Newfoundland and Labrador, with Viking settlements on the Great Northern Peninsula dating back to about 1000 AD.
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