'Swastika Trail' in southern Ontario to keep its name

Community vows to keep fighting for street name change From CTV Kitchener's Daryl Morris: Residents aren't happy that Puslinch Council voted against changing the name of Swastika Trail.

A street in southern Ontario will continue to be called "Swastika Trail," after the local township council voted against changing the controversial name.

Puslinch Township Council voted 4-1 Wednesday evening against changing the name of the privately owned street. Council member cited a vote held two months ago in which members of the neighbourhood association voted 25-20 to keep the name.

Council members said Wednesday they didn’t want to overstep the democratic actions already taken by residents.

In retaliation, some residents plan to take the issue to the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal.

"It's been indicated to us that lawyers would be willing to help us out," Swastika Trail resident Jennifer Horton told CTV Kitchener. To make the point that the street should be renamed, Horton’s husband Jim recently applied for a “swastika” license plate and was denied.

"They won't issue a swastika license plate because they consider it human rights discrimination," he said. "A street sign is pretty much the same thing. It's government issued and in public view."

The Jewish service organization B'nai Brith Canada had launched an online petition calling on the township to change the street name. Many residents also said the name needed to change, arguing swastikas are associated with anti-Semitism and are still used by neo-Nazis.

"It's already a national shame that residents of your community are beholden to a name representing a symbol that was utilized in the murder of nearly 10 million people in concentration camps and more than 40,000 Canadian soldiers who went to fight the Nazis," Avi Benlolo, president and CEO of Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies, wrote in an open letter.

But those in support of keeping the name say the road was named in the 1920s, before the rise of Adolf Hitler in Nazi Germany. They argued the swastika had a long history before the Second World War as a symbol of peace.

One woman who lives on Swastika Trail, Tracy Riehl, explained before the vote that she didn’t want to see anything changed.

"Basically, it's because I don't want to have to change all our information. And I don't see how it's bad because it was good in the years and years before Hitler got a hold of it,” she told CTV Kitchener.

Council heard from 14 delegations before deciding against changing the street name.

Resident Natalie Busch said after the vote she’s glad the township voted to keep the name, saying the decision validates the opinion of the majority of street residents.

“We're proud to live on ‘Swastika’ and we don't need to change the name,” she told CTV Kitchener.

With a report from CTV Kitchener’s Daryl Morris