Students, Others Renew Call For Return of Macdonald Statue to Kingston Park

The statue of Sir John A Macdonald is about to be removed by workers in Kingston, Ont., on June 18, 2021. The Canadian Press/Lars Hagberg

A group of university students, historians, and local conservatives are renewing calls to restore a statue of former Prime Minister Sir John A. Macdonald to a park in Kingston, Ontario.

The statue was removed from City Park in Kingston—Macdonald’s hometown—on June 18, 2021, after city council voted two days earlier to relocate it to Cataraqui Cemetery, where he is buried, amid protests and calls for its removal.

Students from the Queen’s University Conservative Association are renewing calls for support of a petition, initially launched on July 7, 2021, seeking the statue’s return.

The petition says there is widespread misinformation in Canada about Macdonald, including claims attributing actions to him that occurred after his death, and rejects suggestions that he was a “racist architect of genocide” against indigenous peoples.

It highlights Macdonald’s role as Canada’s first prime minister and a founding figure who helped build the transcontinental railway, and presents him as an important historical figure, particularly in Kingston, where he is buried.

“We need to cancel misinformation, not cancel history. We need to celebrate Canada, not tear it down,” the petition says.

In recent years, several municipalities have removed Macdonald’s statues in response to protesters who criticize him for establishing the residential school system for indigenous children.

Association president Rodrigo Garfinkle says the statue of John A., which stood in Kingstons’ City Park for 126 years, should be reinstated as a way of preserving history rather than removing it. He described the issue as both local and educational, saying public monuments should encourage discussion and reflection on Canada’s past.

He called the decision to remove the statue “abrupt and impulsive,” and said some had alleged the removal violated local bylaws and the Ontario Heritage Act.

Speaking at a city council meeting on March 18, Queen’s University historian Duncan McDowall said that in removing the statue, “twenty-first century sensibilities were attributed to a nineteenth century politician.”

“I would suggest that this is not how history is run. History is not a process of subtraction, taking something out of our heritage,” he said. “It is the process of addition and amplification, by which we update our understanding of our heritage.”

McDowall called for the statue to be returned to the park or another prominent location where new contextualization could be applied, “celebrating what Macdonald stood for in this city and this nation, but at the same time identifying the shortfalls in that generation’s management of Canada, including prominently the Indigenous peoples of Canada.”

Meanwhile, the Kingston Indigenous Language Nest (KILN) has advocated for the establishment of a garden on the former site of the statue. The proposed garden would include two raised vegetable and traditional medicine beds, and support for KILN initiatives related to indigenous food sovereignty and indigenous language and cultural learning.

A poll conducted by Nanos Research in February found that 59 percent of Kingston residents said they would “support” returning the statue to its original location in City Park, while another 12 percent said they would “somewhat support” the move, bringing total support to 71 percent. Twenty percent opposed the statue’s return, while 9 percent were unsure.