Britain’s former prince Andrew has been stripped of his titles over his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein.ADRIAN DENNIS/AFP/Getty Images
He has been stripped of his titles, faces eviction from his royal residence and has been publicly shamed over his friendship with U.S. sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
But despite his ignominious fall from grace and relegation down the ranks of the Royal Family, Canada still has a host of places named after the former Prince Andrew – including an island.
MPs and senators say Canada’s map should be cleansed of references to the disgraced former prince, now known as Andrew Mountbatten Windsor, while local councils are to discuss renaming a clutch of streets and topographical features named after him.
They include Prince Andrew Drive in Caledon, in the Greater Toronto Area, and Prince Andrew Island on the Otonabee River running by Lakefield, Ont., where he went to school in 1977 for a term.
The fall of a royal: from dashing prince to plain old Andrew
Senator Julie Miville-Dechêne said Canada should remove references to the former prince from its map.
“I’m convinced we should get rid, as quickly as possible, of all the names of Canadian roads and places that are named after Prince Andrew,” she said. “Considering Prince Andrew’s shameful links with sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein and his alleged abuse of an underage girl, I think we have plenty of reasons to have his name disappear as soon as possible from our maps.”
The tiny island on the Otonabee River sits next to the slightly larger Gordonstoun Island, named after the austere Scottish boarding school attended by Mr. Mountbatten Windsor and King Charles III and their father, Prince Philip.
Prince Andrew attended the private Lakefield College School, in the village of Lakefield, north of Peterborough, Ont., for six months in 1977. He maintained ties with the school for many years, serving as a trustee and as honorary chair of the school’s foundation, roles that ended several years ago.
Emma Harrison, the Liberal MP for Peterborough whose riding includes the school and Prince Andrew Island, said she is “fully supportive” of renaming it.
“I support the will of the First Nations connected to the Trent-Severn Waterway and the broader community in choosing a new name that represents the history and beauty of the waterways that flow through the riding of Peterborough,” she said in an e-mail.
Sherry Senis, the mayor of Selwyn Township, where Prince Andrew Island is located, said she would “certainly be inclined to look for a name change” for the island “given the recent turn of events.”
She said she plans to raise the issue later this month at the next council meeting. For the island to be renamed, the council would need to make an application to Ontario’s Geographic Names Board, she said.
King Charles, right, has forced his younger brother out of his Windsor home as the royals seek to distance themselves from the former prince due to his links to the Jeffrey Epstein scandal.Toby Melville/Reuters
In Caledon, Ont., a winding street in a semi-rural neighbourhood also bears the former prince’s name.
Caledon Councillor Dave Sheen said he would like to hear from residents about “whether they feel the street name still reflects the character and standards we want to represent in Caledon.”
“King Charles’s historic decision to strip Prince Andrew of his titles is unprecedented in modern times, reflecting serious concerns about the former prince’s conduct,” Mr. Sheen said. “So, given this, I believe renaming Prince Andrew Drive in Caledon is certainly worth a discussion.”
Toronto’s Don Mills neighbourhood features a long, wide street called Prince Andrew Place with several commercial properties, while in St. Catharines, Ont., just a stroll from the banks of Lake Ontario, there is Prince Andrew Court.
In Oak Bay, on the southern tip of Vancouver Island, there is another Prince Andrew Place, which, according to local records, first had houses in 1961, the year after Mr. Mountbatten Windsor’s birth. Nearby is a street named after his younger brother, Prince Edward.
Senator Tony Dean said there “were mixed views on the Royal Family even before Andrew’s myriad embarrassing failings came to light.”
“I doubt there would be pushback from any community in seeing his name removed from public places,” he added in an e-mail.
Some Canadian institutions have already distanced themselves from Queen Elizabeth II’s second son over his friendship with Mr. Epstein.
Prince Andrew High School was renamed in 2022 to Woodlawn High School.Andrew Vaughan/The Canadian Press
Prince Andrew High School in Dartmouth was named in his honour in 1960, the year he was born. But in 2022, it changed its name to Woodlawn High School in response to the controversy.
The former prince became royal patron of the Canadian Canoe Museum in Peterborough, Ont., in 2007, and honorary chair of its national council in 2018. The museum severed ties with him in 2019.
Senator Paula Simons said, “I loathe the idea of honouring this disgraced ex-royal in perpetuity,” but added, “There is something a little Orwellian and a little too easy in the erasure and sanitization of history, in turning a former prince into an unperson.”
“I think it’s worth taking a moment to interrogate why Canada named all these things after him in the first place,” she said in a text message.
In 2022, Elizabeth II stripped her third child of his military titles and royal patronages, including in Canada. He had been honorary colonel-in-chief of the Royal Highland Fusiliers of Canada, as well as the Princess Louise Fusiliers, based in Halifax, and the Queen’s York Rangers.
Former prince Andrew to be stripped of last military position
Canada also has several streets named after the Duke of York, another of Mr. Mountbatten Windsor’s former titles. The historic title dates back to the late Middle Ages and has traditionally been given to the second son of English, and later British, monarchs. Last month Mr. Mountbatten Windsor said he would no longer use the title, granted to him by the Queen in 1986 when he married Sarah Ferguson.
He continues to maintain his innocence and that he had no knowledge of Mr. Epstein’s sex trafficking of teenage girls. He is among the high-profile friends of the former American financier, who died in prison in 2019 while awaiting trial on a string of charges.
Mr. Mountbatten Windsor met Mr. Epstein through a mutual friend, Ghislaine Maxwell, who was sentenced to 20 years in a U.S. prison for assisting Mr. Epstein’s crimes. The former prince stayed in contact with Mr. Epstein even after the latter’s guilty pleas for prostituting minors in 2008 and sex-trafficking charges in 2019.
The former Duke of York is facing eviction from the Royal Lodge, a 30-room mansion in Windsor where he has lived since 2003.
He had hosted Mr. Epstein and Ms. Maxwell in 2006 for his daughter Beatrice’s masked-ball 18th-birthday celebrations in the state rooms of Windsor Castle. The party took place just months after a U.S. arrest warrant had been issued for Mr. Epstein for the sexual assault of a minor.