Premier Kathleen Wynne is taking a swing at the name of Cleveland’s baseball team — and praising sportscasters for not using “Indians” in their broadcasts.

On the eve of the Toronto Blue Jays’ American League championship series against Cleveland, Wynne said, “This is a moment to increase our awareness” of how hurtful such team names are to indigenous people.

“People are understanding the relationship between indigenous and non-indigenous people differently. There’s lots happening: this is happening in the sports realm; we’re changing the curriculum; the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, so there’s a lot going on,” she said Thursday.

“It’s really a good thing that we see sportscasters changing their language,” the premier said, hailing long-time Jays’ broadcaster Jerry Howarth, who has refused to use First Nations nicknames since the 1992 World Series when Toronto defeated the Atlanta Braves.

“I loved that and I loved his story about why has done that. This isn’t a new thing for him and I think it’s just such a principled thing that he has done and I’m glad now that he’s explaining that to people,” added Ontario’s most politically powerful Jays’ fan.

Cleveland’s team has been known as the Indians since 1914.

On Tuesday, Horwath told The Jeff Blair Show on Sportsnet 590 The Fan that he has refrained from using the terms after a heartfelt letter from a fan from a northern Ontario First Nation.

“He said, ‘Jerry, I appreciate your work but in the World Series, it was so offensive to have the tomahawk chop and to have people talk about the powwows on the mound and then the Cleveland Indians logo and the Washington Redskins,’ ” the broadcaster recalled.

“For the rest of my career I will not say ‘Indian’ or ‘Brave,’ and if I was in the NFL I would not say ‘Redskins,’ ” said Howarth, whose move inspired Jays’ TV host Jamie Campbell.

“Like Jerry Howarth, I will attempt to avoid using the name of Cleveland’s baseball team during our broadcasts,” Sportsnet’s Campbell said on Twitter.

Wynne said “for sportscasters and people who are close to the sporting world to be coming out and talking about this . . . is really compelling.”

“If it were language around another group we would see more it readily. Because it’s indigenous people and we haven’t really had the honest discussion up until now, we’ve kind of turned away or haven’t even recognized it as a problem,” the premier said.

“Things that have just been accepted for years and years and years now will become, I think, quite quickly even more unacceptable.”

Asked whether the Indians’ nickname is racist or merely anachronistic, Wynne was philosophical.

“That’s a question that has to be asked of indigenous people. I don’t think I can answer that question because what’s the context, who’s using it, how is it being used. Those are questions that have to be put to people at whom the language is directed,” she said.

The premier said she listened with interest to a discussion on CBC Radio’s Metro Morning Tuesday between host Matt Galloway and commentator Jesse Wente, who spoke passionately about Cleveland’s “utterly inappropriate and racist” team name and its mascot, Chief Wahoo.

“To the point of Jesse’s interview the other day — indigenous people get to say what acceptable and what’s not. And that’s a conversation we have to have,” said Wynne, whose son-in-law, the father of her three grandchildren, is Cree.

“I wouldn’t be able to explain to my grandchildren why that language wouldn’t change. I might be able to explain why it was used in the first place and how the relationship wasn’t a good relationship and people didn’t treat each other well.”

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Her comments come as the Ontario Human Rights Commission is looking at a complaint about Mississauga sports team names.

Earlier this year, the premier — who launches almost all her speeches by noting which First Nation’s traditional territory she is in — changed the name of the ministry of aboriginal affairs to Indigenous Relations and Reconciliation.

“Language changes as our understanding changes and that’s as it should be,” she said.

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