CORNWALLIS ISN’T PULLED DOWN, BUT HE IS COVERED UP

CORNWALLIS STATUE

HALIFAX • Protesters who pledged to remove a statue of Halifax’s controversial founder Saturday say they came away victorious after the monument to Edward Cornwallis was covered in a tarp — if only for a few hours.

And overnight Saturday, someone scrawled “F--- 150” near the base of the statue, an apparent reference to Canada’s 150th anniversary.

On Saturday, more than 100 people looked up at a municipal worker, hoisted by a crane in a city-owned truck, as he draped a black tarp over the bronze statue at the centre of Halifax’s Cornwallis Park. Hours later, after the protesters had left, the tarp was removed.

A Facebook event called “Removing Cornwallis” had invited protesters to “peacefully remove” the statue, but organizers didn’t initially say how they planned to make that happen.

Cornwallis, as governor of Nova Scotia, founded Halifax in 1749 and soon after issued a bounty on Mi’kmaq scalps in response to an attack on colonists. The Mi’kmaq have long called for removal of tributes to Cornwallis, some calling his actions a form of genocide.

Organizer Elizabeth Marshall said she wanted to see the statue toppled, but at the advice of Indigenous elders they decided to symbolically bury Cornwallis with a black tarp.

“(The elders) didn’t say take him down in violence. They said we want him taken down in our way,” Marshall told the crowd. “We want to take him down in love. We want to counteract their hatred.”

Mayor Mike Savage — who had voiced concerns about “violent action” at the protest earlier in the week — linked hands with protesters as they formed two concentric circles and danced around the shrouded monument to the beat of a drum.

Savage spoke out against the removal plan Tuesday, noting that removing the statue by force is not condoned by the Nova Scotia Assembly of Mi’kmaq Chiefs.

The mayor said he will present a list of protesters’ demands at city hall next week.