Montreal Committee Says John A. MacDonald Statue Shouldn’t Be Reinstated
A Metropolis of Montreal committee has recommended {that a} toppled statue of Sir John A. MacDonald not be reinstated.
The committee criticized MacDonald for his position in residential faculties and mentioned he represented a colonial imaginative and prescient.
The statue in downtown park Place du Canada was toppled in August 2020 amid protests calling for the defunding of police. The protests had been led by the Coalition for BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and Individuals of Color) Liberation.
The toppling of the statue was condemned by Quebec Premier François Legault and Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante on the time, with the latter saying such acts of vandalism “can’t be accepted or tolerated.”
The statue was first erected in 1895. The bottom on which it stood has remained empty for the reason that statue was toppled.
The town committee mandated lecturers and different consultants to find out the heritage worth of the statue and can current its findings to the general public on Dec. 7. It is going to additionally make suggestions to interchange the statue with different artwork.
Different statues of MacDonald have been vandalized throughout the nation, significantly after the Kamloops Indian Band introduced on Could 27, 2021, that it had found the unmarked graves of residential college kids utilizing ground-penetrating radar.
In Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, and Picton, Ontario, statues of him had been doused with crimson paint. In Hamilton, Ontario, amid protests supporting the indigenous group in August 2021, a John A. MacDonald statue at Gore Park was toppled.
Some college boards have additionally eliminated his namesake from faculties. Sir John A. Macdonald Public Faculty in Kingston, Ontario, is now École Maple Elementary School. Sir John A. Macdonald Senior Public Faculty in Brampton, Ontario, might be renamed Nibi Emosaawdang Public Faculty. The federal authorities eliminated his likeness from the $10 invoice.
Following the Kamloops Indian Band announcement, protesters burned or vandalized dozens of church buildings.
The Canadian Press contributed to this report.
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Tara MacIsaac is an editor and reporter who has labored on a wide range of matters over the course of her 10 years with The Epoch Occasions, together with science, the atmosphere, and native New York information. She is at the moment working with The Epoch Occasions version based mostly in Southern California.
