Statue of Sir John A. Macdonald covered in red paint in Baden
‘People do things without thinking,’ says frustrated mayor of Wilmot Township
BADEN — Red paint was dumped on the head of the statue of Sir John A. Macdonald near Castle Kilbride some time over the weekend.
Waterloo Regional Police say they were informed of the incident in Wilmot Township around 7 a.m. Sunday morning by a passerby. Thick, red paint had dripped down the face and jacket of the bronze statue of Canada’s first Prime Minister, and pooled at his feet.
Mayor Les Armstrong expressed frustration “that people do things without thinking,” he said Sunday morning near the statue. A handful of volunteers had already gathered to clean it by mid-morning.
The monument is part of a display called Prime Ministers Path on the grounds of the historic home and museum, which also holds the township offices.
Entitled “A Canadian Conversation” the statue of Macdonald was sculpted by Ruth Abernethy and unveiled in 2016, ahead of the Canada’s sesquicentennial celebration in 2017.
It’s one of five statues of Canadian prime ministers on the property, but police said Sunday it was the only one targeted. Police are asking the community for help and canvassing the area for possible surveillance footage.
Armstrong said the statue project is aimed at increasing the historical knowledge of the 23 individuals who have been elected to the position since 1867 — good and bad.
Macdonald has been criticized for racist acts, including helping to establish the res
idential school system that sought to assimilate Indigenous children for more than a century.
Sunday also marked National Indigenous Peoples Day in Canada.
“It was a completely different world when he was prime minister,” Armstrong said. “We have to recognize that.”
This isn’t the first time the statue in Baden has been vandalized, the mayor added, but this is among the worst he’s seen.
It’s the latest in a series of similar acts across Canada that have seen statues of historical figures with connections to racist aspects of Canada’s history vandalized.
Last week a similar statue of Macdonald was also covered in red paint in Charlottetown.
The local statue project had trouble even finding a home when it was first proposed in 2013. Initially planned for Victoria Park in Kitchener, the idea was rejected after receiving backlash from the community.
Wilfrid Laurier University agreed to allow the statues to be placed on campus in 2015, but that decision was also later reversed following considerable outcry and lack of consultation.
A special committee formed to review the statue’s inclusion on campus wrote, “it is possible that the Prime Minister Statues Project can be read as contributing to a visible narrative of political power and colonialism that makes invisible a diverse range of parallel and intersecting narratives including the often forgotten stories of those harmed and marginalized through Canada's history.”