The statue was unveiled at Queen's Park was on Wednesday, five years after it was boarded up.Sammy Kogan/The Globe and Mail
Workers at Queen’s Park removed wooden boards on Wednesday morning that have surrounded a statue of Sir John A. Macdonald since 2020, when Black Lives Matter protesters covered it with pink paint.
The decision by the Board of Internal Economy, the Ontario legislative committee that voted to uncover the statue, has stoked tensions with First Nations and debate over the legacy of the first Canadian prime minister. Macdonald played a key role in creating Canada’s residential school system.
Opposition NDP deputy leader Sol Mamakwa, Ontario’s only First Nations MPP, told reporters in May that the decision to reveal the statue is disrespectful.
“When I think about Sir John A. Macdonald, I think about Indian residential schools, period,” he said.
The statue’s unboxing follows the passage of Bill 5 by Premier Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservative government. That legislation drew vehement opposition from First Nations for proposing “special economic zones” where the province could suspend any of its own laws to speed up development projects.
In a post on social media on Wednesday, Mr. Mamakwa criticized the Ford government for championing both the Macdonald statue and Bill 5 during June, National Indigenous History Month. Mr. Mamakwa has said that the statue could be moved into a museum or have a plaque explaining Canada’s residential school system and Macdonald’s involvement.
When it was uncovered, the statue was accompanied by a plaque that read: “though we cannot change the history we have inherited, we can shape the history we wish to leave behind," but does not mention Indigenous peoples or residential schools.
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In an interview on Wednesday, Donna Skelly, the Speaker of the Legislature who presides over its debates and the grounds, said Canadians cannot ignore their history by keeping the statue covered.
“We can learn from our history, and we all have different interpretations of Sir John A Macdonald’s role in Canadian history,” Ms. Skelly said.
A committee managing the coming renovation of Queen’s Park is set to recommend how the grounds can “reflect the atrocities of the residential school system,” Ms. Skelly said. However, the committee must first reach a consensus among the Indigenous communities it’s consulting, a process that began two years ago, she said.
“Any proposal is and would be welcome. But that must originate with Indigenous communities and Indigenous leadership,” Ms. Skelly said.
In 2021, protesters placed shoes at the base of Macdonald’s statue to memorialize Indigenous children who died in residential schools, or never came home. The shoes are now on display in a meeting room inside Ontario’s legislature.
Ms. Skelly said she heard from many constituents and colleagues who said they supported keeping Macdonald’s statue standing at Queen’s Park. Ms. Skelly said she welcomes peaceful protesters but warned that Queen’s Park security are monitoring the statue and will not tolerate vandalism.
Minister of Education Paul Calandra, one of two PC MPPs on the legislative committee, moved the motion to unbox the statue, which Liberal House Leader John Fraser supported.
Mr. Calandra recently introduced a bill requiring his approval of the name of a new school or to change the name of an existing school. Meanwhile, the Toronto District School Board is undertaking the renaming of three schools named after Macdonald, Egerton Ryerson and Henry Dundas. The roles of the latter two in residential schools and the slave trade have also come under scrutiny.
Other Macdonald statues have been targets of vandalism in recent years. Protesters toppled statues of Macdonald in Montreal and Hamilton and a statue in Charlottetown was removed by the city.
With a report from Jeff Gray