Indigenous-led committee will help pick a new name for Amherst Street

The Plante administration is creating a committee of Indigenous people to help pick a new name for Amherst Street.

The street will be renamed after an Indigenous person who helped shape the city, and the committee will come up with suggestions of people who the street can be renamed for, said city spokesperson Samuel-Philippe Dugr.

The participants are still being chosen, but that process should be done by the fall.

The north-south street just east of downtown Montreal was named for Jeffery Amherst, a reveredBritish general who advocated the use of biological warfare, through smallpox blankets, to kill Indigenous people.

In one of his last acts as mayor of Montreal, Denis Coderre announced he wanted to strip the Amherst name from the street.

Now-retired KahnawakeMohawk Council Chief ChristineZachary-Deomhas suggested it be named after Huron Chief Kondiaronk, whose name currently graces a lookout on Mount Royal.

He was akey figure in the 1701 treaty called the Great Peace of Montreal.

According to the city, organizations in the neighbourhood and merchants' associations will be kept informed of the renaming process as it progresses.