Charlottetown has no plans for boxed-up John A statue, but some want it shown again — differently

Three years after the City of Charlottetown removed its prominently displayed John A Macdonald sculpture, the mayor says there are no immediate plans for what to do with it — but the city is open to ideas.

The statue of Canada’s first prime minister created by Colorado artist Mike Halterman was removed from its perch on a bench at the corner of Queen Street and Victoria Row in the spring of 2021 after a year of public debate.

It has since been crated and stored on the grounds of the city’s public works buildings. A portrait of Macdonald that the city had in its collection is also in storage.

“I think it was a good decision,” Mayor Philip Brown said this week.

“Because when you look at the work that went into the statue with the artist from Denver… and then the portrait… these are both pieces of art. We wanted to ensure that there was protection from any damage or any possible or potential damage to them.”

Public debate around the statue began to mushroom in the spring of 2020 at a time when other Canadian cities were also grappling with monuments and the legacy of colonialism and residential schools.

Macdonald, one of the founding fathers of Canada at the 1864 Charlottetown Conference, is also widely recognized as a main architect of the residential school system that removed generations of Indigenous children from their parents and home communities. Statues of his likeness were being questioned and in some cases toppled as the 2020s arrived.

Here on P.E.I., critics called for the statue’s removal for nearly a year while the city said it was consulting First Nations, historians and other cities about what to do with it. 

It was vandalized several times with paint and once with seafood chowder before council finally voted to hide it from view.

The statue was swiftly removed in the early hours of June 1, 2021. That was the day after demonstrators placed pairs of children’s shoes around the statue to represent children whose remains were detected in unmarked graves on the grounds of the former Kamloops Indian Residential School, according to an announcement days earlier that had rocked the country.

By throwing him in a closet somewhere, it’s just like putting in the closet what happened.— Chief Darlene Bernard, Lennox Island First Nation

At the time, Coun. Julie McCabe introduced the resolution for removal and said she was sorry it took such a “horrendous revelation” to change councillors’ minds.

Councillors had previously voted to keep the statue in place, but planned to make modifications to show a more complete version of Canada’s history.

This week the mayor said that could still happen, though the city has not made any decisions about the long-term plans for its John A. Macdonald artwork.

“We put it on hold,” Brown said. “But down the road, let’s say the provincial government decides to go with a provincial history and natural science museum. I think that could be part of it again, explaining the full history.”

‘We shouldn’t be hiding that history’

Displaying the statue again with fuller context given is an idea echoed by Lennox Island First Nation chief Darlene Bernard.

“By throwing him in a closet somewhere, it’s just like putting in the closet what happened,” she told CBC News.

“We shouldn’t be hiding that history. That statue could go in to a museum. It could have what he was, what he did, but also the bad things need to be there, like how it affected the First Nations, and I think we should be able to look at him and see him, [saying]: ‘That’s the guy who did that.'”

The idea of P.E.I. having a provincial museum has been floating around for decades. Previous governments have looked into establishing one, but there has been no concrete action yet.

Officials with the Department of Fisheries, Tourism, Sport and Culture and with the P.E.I. Museum and Heritage Foundation told CBC News that there have been no conversations about taking ownership of the statue.

And while she would like to see it displayed in context, Bernard also recognizes that some people take strong offence to Macdonald and any representation of his likeness in public.

“I definitely believe we need to be apart of the discussion, for sure,” she said.  

Charlottetown’s mayor is aware of that tension as well.

“Do I regret that we removed it? For peace and good government, I think it was the right choice,” Brown said.

“But at least we have it as … a piece of art that can be put somewhere else, but also provide the full context of what took place during his term of as prime minister — and Canada’s first prime minister.”