Premier Doug Ford’s Ontario government will remove the wooden box that had been placed over the Sir John A. Macdonald statue at Queen’s Park.
During the summer of 2020, a box was placed over the statue of John A. Macdonald in Ontario. This action was taken to prevent potential defacement or toppling by social justice activists. At the time, activists were actively toppling statues of historical figures in response to the death of George Floyd.
The decision to cover the statue was made by Ontario Speaker Ted Arnott who decided that the statue needed to be boarded up for its own protection.
The Progressive Conservative government has since passed legislation to strip the Speaker’s authority over such matters, laying the power in the hands of Ontario’s Board of Internal Economy.
With support from both PC and Liberal members, the board passed a motion to remove the boarding around Macdonald’s statue soon.
While the Progressive Conservatives have opted to keep the statue of Macdonald boarded up for several years, Ontario Liberal Leader Bonnie Crombie promised to have the box removed if the Liberals formed government.
“Outside Queen’s Park, there’s a statue of our very first prime minister, John A. Macdonald, the founder of our country. But you wouldn’t know that because Doug Ford put a box around him five years ago,” said Crombie.
“Now that’s crazy. we have to confront our history and not hide from it. We have to show them how strong we are, to show our pride, our pride and our past. Now. Look, our past isn’t perfect, but we have to confront it, not put a box around it. It looks weak, and we are not weak.”
The statue was created by Hamilton MacCarthy, a sculptor renowned for his early adoption and mastery of bronze sculpting, and was unveiled on the grounds of Queen’s Park in 1894.
In February, Toronto activist Daniel Tate was arrested and charged with mischief for spray painting “Free John” on the wooden box.
Tate has since been a vocal advocate for maintaining the legacy of important Canadians like Macdonald, Egerton Ryerson, and Henry Dundas, whose names are actively being scrubbed as the names of schools, roads, and city squares.