History
The town of Dundas was incorporated in 1847 as part of Wentworth County. It was named by John Graves Simcoe, Lieutenant Governor of Upper Canada, for his friend Henry Dundas, 1st Viscount Melville, a Scottish lawyer and politician who never visited North America. Prior to be called "Dundas" the town was called Coote’s Paradise, and renamed after 1814 to Dundas.
In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, Dundas enjoyed considerable economic prosperity through its access to Lake Ontario via the Desjardins Canal, and was an important town in Upper Canada and Canada West. It was later surpassed as the economic powerhouse of the area by Hamilton, but for decades it led in importance. A number of Ontario cities (including Toronto) retain streets named Dundas Street, which serve as evidence of its onetime importance. Dundas was once the terminus of Toronto's Dundas Street (also known as Highway 5), one of the earliest routes used by Ontario's first settlers.
With the establishment of McMaster University in nearby west Hamilton in 1930, Dundas gradually became a bedroom community of the university faculty and students, with a thriving arts community. Dundas has a large community of potters and several studio shows/walking tours of the town feature their work each year.
Amalgamation with Hamilton has been proposed on a number of different occasions throughout the history of Dundas, particularly in the 1970s at the time of the formation of the city of Cambridge from a number of smaller towns including Galt, Preston and Hespeler.
Instead, Dundas and Hamilton became two of six second-tier municipalities in the Regional Municipality of Hamilton-Wentworth. There was rough parity between Hamilton and suburban or rural members of the regional council, and it seemed likely that Dundas and other smaller communities like Ancaster had preserved their identity from encroachment by Hamilton.
On March 1, 1976 Town Council proclaimed Dundas the "The Cactus Capital of Canada." This gave rise to the Cactus Festival as the Chamber of Commerce and the Dundas Jaycees were looking to create a summer festival with a strong theme.
In 1995, the issue was resurrected when a Progressive Conservative provincial government under Mike Harris was elected with a stated platform (the Common Sense Revolution) of cost-cutting and reduction of bureaucratic waste. Several proposals for amalgamation were made during the first Harris government, but no formal steps were taken towards amalgamation as they were in many other Ontario municipalities.
Nevertheless a "Dundas Forever" campaign was launched within the town, which took out newspaper ads and distributed signs and bumper stickers promoting the continuation of Dundas' town status. Some observers suggested that the residents of the suburbs were being self-serving, as their present status entitled them to many of the benefits of Hamilton while avoiding the negatives (chiefly high property taxes).
During the 1999 provincial election, the amalgamation question became a significant election issue. Toni Skarica, the Progressive Conservative MPP for Wentworth North, a riding made up largely of the suburban towns in which amalgamation was an issue, explicitly promised that amalgamation would not happen if he were re-elected, despite apparently contrary statements from his government.
In early 2000, the results of a citizen-organized poll on amalgamation were published. The poll claimed a 30% turnout of eligible voters, and a 90% vote against amalgamation. In February, the Harris government announced that Dundas and the rest of Hamilton-Wentworth would be amalgamated to create a new City of Hamilton. In late February 2000, Skarica resigned his seat in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario as an act of protest.
In the summer of 2000, a by-election was held in the new riding of Ancaster-Dundas-Flamborough-Aldershot. The PCs attempted to counter the anger at amalgamation by running a star local candidate, Priscilla de Villiers, but the election went to Ted McMeekin, a Liberal and the former mayor of Flamborough, who made his displeasure at amalgamation very evident. Mark Coakley, a Hamilton lawyer and television personality, campaigned as this riding's first provincial Green Party candidate. The electoral riding is now called Ancaster-Dundas-Flamborough-Westdale.
On January 1 2001, all municipalities of the former two-tier Hamilton-Wentworth Region, including Dundas, Stoney Creek, Flamborough, Ancaster and Glanbrook, were formally amalgamated under the name the City of Hamilton. This act garnered considerable controversy amongst residents of Dundas and other nearby communities.
Despite the former town being officially part of the City of Hamilton, the area is overwhelmingly referred to by residents as Dundas. Various efforts to preserve the town's heritage, including a redesign of the old town Seal to state the "Community of Dundas" and a renewal of the "Welcome to Dundas" signs by the Dundas Division of the local Chamber of Commerce have been undertaken.
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