Cornwallis Street in Halifax to be renamed to Nora Bernard Street

A north-end Halifax street will be renamed after a residential school survivor and prominent Nova Scotia activist who successfully demanded compensation for residential school survivors.

On Tuesday, Halifax regional council voted in favour of renaming Cornwallis Street to Nora Bernard Street. The new street name comes into effect by September 2023.

Those who knew her are overjoyed.

Bernard's family says she was an activist, a matriarch and a Mi'kmaw warrior.

Her daughter, Natalie MacLeod-Gloade, describes Bernard as strong, wise, humble and full of love for her family and her people. 

"She loved beyond loving," MacLeod-Gloade said Monday. "When you got a hug from her, it was like she melted right into you. It was like all your pain and your troubles she absorbed."

A public consultation process took place last summer. Residents were able to vote on potential new names for the street.

Nora Bernard Street was the most popular option with 2,417 votes and is recommended as the first choice in the staff report. 

Residential school survivor

Bernard fought for years for the rights of the Mi'kmaq. 

She was forced to attend the Shubenacadie residential school as a child, and carried what she saw there with her all her life. Her daughter said this made her persevere and fight for survivors. 

She was one of the driving forces behind the push for a class-action lawsuit against Canada over Indian residential schools that began in the late 1990s. The Canadian government settled the lawsuit in 2005 for upwards of $5 billion.

"She won the largest class-action suit in Canadian history for her survivors of the residential schools," MacLeod-Gloade said.

"And everybody knows that it was over 79,000 people, her survivors that she helped to deal with mental, physical, psychological, spiritual and sexual abuse."

The municipality decided to rename Cornwallis Street after a recommendation in a 2020 report. Edward Cornwallis was the British governor of Nova Scotia who issued a proclamation in 1749 promising a bounty of 10 guineas for each Mi'kmaw person killed.

Bernard was born on Millbrook First Nation near Truro, N.S., but lost her status under the Indian Act when she married a non-Indigenous man. When this section of the Act was repealed in 1985, Bernard still had to fight to regain status.

In 2007, she was voted back into the Millbrook band.

Millbrook First Nation Chief Bob Gloade said it means a lot to the community to see Bernard's work recognized.

"What it does is it acknowledges all the hard work and dedication that she has done over the years in regards to residential school survivors," he said.

"If it wasn't for her, nothing would have happened. So, it's good to see that acknowledgment being done in regards to the naming of the street. It's a recognition that has gone for a long time unnoticed."

Gloade said there is more to come in his community in terms of commemorating Bernard.

"There has been some initiatives that have been done by the family and by some survivors," he said. "But there's a lot more that we need to be able to do to commemorate all the work that she has done in her community and for residential school survivors."

In 2007, Bernard was killed in her home by MacLeod-Gloade's son, James Douglas Gloade. She was 72.

James Douglas Gloade pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 15 years for manslaughter. In 2021, he was released from prison to live at a halfway house. 

Order of Nova Scotia

In 2008, Bernard was posthumously awarded the Order of Nova Scotia, the province's highest honour.

MacLeod-Gloade said naming a street after her mother is another way of honouring her.

She said she was in "absolute shock" when she heard the news of the recommendation.

"I cried," MacLeod-Gloade said. "I just kept thinking about my mom, like I always do. But I'm just overjoyed thinking how humble she would have been in regards to her name even being put forth."

MacLeod-Gloade said she hopes the new street name will lead to people educating themselves on the legacy of residential schools and her mother's work. 

"She would have been overwhelmed with the gratitude that people didn't forget her."