Winnipeg mayor wants Edmonton Eskimos to choose ‘a more inclusive’ team name
Winnipeg Mayor Brian Bowman thinks the CFL’s Edmonton Eskimos should change their team name.
“I think there’s an opportunity to have a more inclusive name,” Bowman said on Wednesday, days before a West Division playoff matchup between the Eskimos and the Winnipeg Blue Bombers.
“That’s ultimately a decision for the team, though.”
Bowman, who is Metis, said he respects the Edmonton CFL organization, but would prefer a different name.
The Eskimos said in a statement that they use the name with “pride and respect.”
“At this point in time, we are actively engaged in listening to the conversation that people are having around our name,” the team said. “Those conversations are ongoing and we are keenly listening to all input including from our loyal season seat holders and fans.”
The team also said if Bowman has an opinion he’d like to share with them, he should do so.
The Eskimos are facing the Blue Bombers in the CFL western semi-final on Sunday in Winnipeg.
It’s not the first time there have been calls for the Edmonton team to change its name.
Andre Talbot, the retired 2004 Grey Cup champion who played for the Toronto Argonauts but spent his final season in 2010 with Edmonton, said that changing the team name would be a small, but positive gesture.
“We have to honour the aboriginal communities of our great country and respect the fact that the name is deemed offensive and oppressive to these communities,” Talbot said in an interview in 2015. “Sports organizations need to be community building organizations. And if we’re isolating and offending part of that community, then our particular organization or league is not doing its job.”
Natan Obed, president of Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, which represents Canada’s 60,000 Inuit, said in 2015 that it wasn’t right for any team to be named after an ethnic group. He called the term Eskimo a relic of a past in which Inuit people had no control over their lives or even what they were called. He said he would be offended if someone called him Eskimo.
Toronto Mayor John Tory, meanwhile, encouraged Edmonton ownership to change the name last October.
“The people who have to step up first are the ones that actually own these franchises and say, ‘You know what, we recognize times have changed,’” Tory, a former CFL commissioner, told the Toronto Sun at the time. “‘We recognize it’s 2016 and that these kind of things can’t really be defended any more on the basis of tradition.’”