Halifax council votes to remove statue of city’s controversial founder.

HALIFAX• City council voted Tuesday to immediately remove a statue of Edward Cornwallis from a downtown park, with several councillors calling the bronze figure of the city’s controversial military founder a barrier to reconciliation.

After just over an hour of debate, it took less than 10 seconds for council to vote 12-4 to temporarily place the statue in storage until a decision is made on its long-term fate.

“The Cornwallis statue has become a powerful symbol,” Mayor Mike Savage told council. “I believe its continued presence on a pedestal in the middle of a city park is an impediment to sustained progress and forging productive, respectful and lasting relationships with the Mi’ kmaq in the spirit of truth and reconciliation.”

He added: “Halifax is not the garrison town of Edward Cornwallis. It’s a thriving, diverse, modern city that I believe will be largely shaped by those who’ve been here the longest and those who are finding it for the first time.”

Morley Googoo, regional chief of the Assembly of First Nations, said the decision to take down the statue is a “huge opportunity for the city.

“Other municipalities across the country are dealing with the same very question about how to have a new relationship with Indigenous Peoples,” he told reporters. “Being here today and witnessed how we talked about it and the progress we’ve made in Halifax, I’m very proud to be here.”

Nova Scotia Mi’ kmaq chiefs had called Friday for the statue to be taken down immediately, because a panel appointed in October to study how the city commemorates Cornwallis had not even met yet.

“If we want reconciliation, we pull down the statue immediately,” said Coun. Richard Zurawski. “Let’s end the 500 years of broken promises and take away this visual symbol of supremacy.”

The mayor told council that removing the statue is not about rewriting history, but acknowledging that history is also not “cast in bronze.”

Cornwallis is a disputed character seen by some as a brave leader who founded Halifax, but by others as the commander of a bloody and barbaric extermination campaign against Mi’kmaq inhabitants.

“The status quo is completely untenable. The statue is a barrier to reconciliation,” Coun. Sam Austin said during the debate. “Cornwallis will always be in the history books. This is about how we commemorate him.”

Halifax councillors voted last fall to launch a special advisory committee that would provide council with advice on what to do with Cornwallis commemorations, as well as make recommendations for honouring Indigenous history.

But the Assembly of Nova Scotia Mi’kmaq Chiefs said it was frustrated with a process that dragged on for “far too long.”