City of Victoria to remove statue of John A. Macdonald from the steps of City Hall

[Cecil Terwilliger]

The City of Victoria is set to remove a statue of John A. Macdonald from the steps of city hall on August 11.
City Family's Witness Reconciliation Program — a group created last year to pursue issues of reconciliation with the Songhees and Esquimalt Nations — denounced the first prime minister of Canada as "a leader of violence against Indigenous peoples."
In a lengthy statement on her website, Victoria Mayor Lisa Helps notes that a plaque will immediately replace the statue until all parties involved can "find a way to recontextualize Macdonald in an appropriate way." Until then, it will be stored in a city facility.

Helps cited a 1879 decry in which the prime minister writes, "When the school is on the reserve, the child lives with its parents, who are savages, and though he may learn to read and write, his habits and training mode of thought are Indian. He is simply a savage who can read and write. "It has been strongly impressed upon myself, as head of the Department, that Indian children should be withdrawn as much as possible from the parental influence, and the only way to do that would be to put them in central training industrial schools where they will acquire the habits and modes of thought of white men."

https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2018/0...-c_a_23498763/


I'm not sure where to stand on this. John A was clearly a dbag but on the other hand, we can't ignore his role in Canadian history or pretend like the values and norms of 1879 are even remotely similar today.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by Cecil Terwilliger

https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2018/0...-c_a_23498763/


I'm not sure where to stand on this. John A was clearly a dbag but on the other hand, we can't ignore his role in Canadian history or pretend like the values and norms of 1879 are even remotely similar today.

Right. Which is why it should be left alone.

Its a statue, see it as you want to see it. But dont remove it.

Removing it is like pretending it never happened which just doesnt work and is a flawed premise.

They did the best they could with what they had at the time. Mistakes were made, but you cant judge people in the 1870s based on the morality of the 2000s+.

He was an important historic figure in Canadian history, for better or worse. Nobody is perfect but ignoring his imperfections or eliminating them from history is not the way to go nor is considering his statue an honour to his imperfections.

[Reaper]

Originally Posted by Locke

Right. Which is why it should be left alone.

Its a statue, see it as you want to see it. But dont remove it.

Removing it is like pretending it never happened which just doesn't work and is a flawed premise.

They're not removing it to pretend it never happened. They're removing it to make city hall a bit more welcoming for First Nations peoples. The statue is completely unavoidable if you want to go to city hall. It is about 10 feet from the doors and facing the path to said doors.

[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by Cecil Terwilliger

https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2018/0...-c_a_23498763/


I'm not sure where to stand on this. John A was clearly a dbag but on the other hand, we can't ignore his role in Canadian history or pretend like the values and norms of 1879 are even remotely similar today.

Would this decision have been made had there not been a strong movement to remove Confederate monuments throughout the southern Unites States? I wonder.

I don't have a problem with this, but in large part because I think it is a good idea for societies to move away from the practice of human veneration. We can honour our past and those figures from history who have shaped our society without building idols of them.

[The Yen Man]

Guess it's really no different than in the States of them removing the statues of those racist confederates. If people have no issues with them removing those, then it'd be kind of hypocritical to have any issues with this.

[Ducay]

Christ, saw this coming a mile away after all the hooplah over confederate statues last year.

This movement is going to simply highlight that LITERALLY EVERYONE in history had misgivings, whether on-side or off-side at the time, when compared to our current set of values. Hell, even literal saints back in the day did plenty of things unacceptable today.

Are we to denounce every king and queen in history over their treatment of various groups, colonization and enslavement of peoples, etc? Sure its not something we would do today, but are we supposed to pretend it didn't happen? These people played pivotal roles in our past and to remove any reference or celebration of that role?

[iggy_oi]

Originally Posted by Locke

Right. Which is why it should be left alone.

Its a statue, see it as you want to see it. But dont remove it.

Removing it is like pretending it never happened which just doesnt work and is a flawed premise.

Wouldn’t leaving the statue up be considered pretending it didn’t happen? They are putting a plaque in its place to bring awareness to the situation and storing the statue until they find a more suitable location for it.

They did the best they could with what they had at the time. Mistakes were made, but you cant judge people in the 1870s based on the morality of the 2000s+.

Sure you can, it’s called progress.

He was an important historic figure in Canadian history, for better or worse. Nobody is perfect but ignoring his imperfections or eliminating them from history is not the way to go nor is considering his statue an honour to his imperfections.

No one is eliminating anything or anyone from history. It’s just a statue that is being moved.

[Cecil Terwilliger]

Originally Posted by Textcritic

Would this decision have been made had there not been a strong movement to remove Confederate monuments throughout the southern Unites States? I wonder.

I don't haver a problem with this, but in large part because I think it is a good idea for societies to move away from the practice of human veneration. We can honour our past and those figures from history who have shaped our society without building idols of them.

And the Confederate statues issue was exactly what i was thinking when I read this.

I think the biggest difference is that slavery was not well regarded even in the 1860s, they went to war over it. Residential schools wasn't nearly as controversial until much more recently. It doesn't make it any less heinous when looking back but under the context of the times, I think an argument could be made it was totally accepted.

And while I'm not exactly worried about some outlandish slippery slope scenario where we see all remnants of European expansion into NA wiped away in the name of political correctness, it does make me wonder where I would draw the line. I think I'm ok with removing this statue but what about other historical figures? Should we rename the Cabot trail in Cape Breton? Should we rename provincial parks, cities, buildings, schools?

[CaptainCrunch]

Why not give the the group a place to put up a statue?


Its a livable compromise.

[Cecil Terwilliger]

Originally Posted by The Yen Man

Guess it's really no different than in the States of them removing the statues of those racist confederates. If people have no issues with them removing those, then it'd be kind of hypocritical to have any issues with this.

There are some similarities but not even close to saying they are "no different." Residential schools and slavery/civil war in the US aren't the same.

[CroFlames]

Confederates actively tried to break away from the republic of the United States. Statues of Confederates should be removed in today's United States since they are anti-American.



John A MacDonald actively worked to build Canada. His statue should remain.

[llwhiteoutll]

Originally Posted by iggi_oi

Sure you can, it’s called progress

Do you feel that the lens of today's morals and values should be equally applied?

Because if so, we can start with statues of Emily Murphy and Tommy Douglas.

[Erick Estrada]

Originally Posted by Reaper

They're not removing it to pretend it never happened. They're removing it to make city hall a bit more welcoming for First Nations peoples. The statue is completely unavoidable if you want to go to city hall. It is about 10 feet from the doors and facing the path to said doors.

Well let's not pretend that Johnny Mac was the only Canadian that viewed natives as savages. It was a widely held belief in those times. You can take down the statues but nobody can erase what happened and history is important regardless of how despicable or offensive it may be viewed today. Germans have had to live with Hitler and WWII and their kids have to go though education of WWII and they make no efforts to discount the Holocaust. Hiding from it benefits nobody.

You can view the statue as a part of our history or you can resent it but to me these things have significance. It's not like people are worshipping it or anything. Also lets not pretend that 99% of natives that walk past that statue don't know, or care about it, or notice it for that matter when entering the building. It's the 1% that this is catering to.

[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by Cecil Terwilliger

...And while I'm not exactly worried about some outlandish slippery slope scenario where we see all remnants of European expansion into NA wiped away in the name of political correctness, it does make me wonder where I would draw the line. I think I'm ok with removing this statue but what about other historical figures? Should we rename the Cabot trail in Cape Breton? Should we rename provincial parks, cities, buildings, schools?

This kind of thing is already taking place en masse. Mt. McKinley in Alaska was renamed Denali. All along the Sea-to-Sky Highway place names on the road signs now appear in English, and along with their Squamish and Lilwat designations.

Like I said: take all the statues down, for all I care. There are other ways by which we can commemorate our past and its actors—why must we do so in the forms of effigy?

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Originally Posted by Reaper

They're not removing it to pretend it never happened. They're removing it to make city hall a bit more welcoming for First Nations peoples. The statue is completely unavoidable if you want to go to city hall. It is about 10 feet from the doors and facing the path to said doors.

I can understand this sentiment, although I'm not sure I agree with it. But in that case, wouldn't the best thing to do be to move the statue somewhere else? Macdonald's an important historical figure, and as noted, all such figures likely held views we consider abhorrent. This "let's sanitize history" project some people seem to be on makes me uncomfortable... likely has something to do with its orthodox approach to everything.

[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

...You can view the statue as a part of our history or you can resent it but to me these things have significance. It's not like people are worshipping it or anything. Also lets not pretend that 99% of natives that walk past that statue don't know, or care about it, or notice it for that matter when entering the building. It's the 1% that this is catering to.

Is that a fact? I suspect in truth that you—like me—don't have the slightest inkling about how 99% of natives who live in the Victoria area feel about this.

[CaptainCrunch]

Its funny because John A is just a whole bag of good and bad. He was the modern father of confederation, he was the architect of what we have now. Even though it was viewed as crazy at the time he extended this country.


But he was also responsible for the above, he was a primary figure in the CPR scandal, he put in the Chinese Head Tax, had Riel executed.



I agree, with a lot of people that we've now done the whole back seat driving of history where we're judging peoples acts based on modern sentiment and sensibility, and that people and life was completely different back then, and we really should be judging people based on that time period and their education and how they think.


However the danger of that, is that you can almost exonerate slavery by doing that, because it was acceptable not only in the States, but world wide.



You can look at the holocaust and say, to an extent that anti-semitism was world wide, and yeah the Germans murdered 6 million, but it wasn't their fault.


On the John A McDonald thing, why not just leave the statue and put up a plaque that lays all of his accomplishments and negative actions with the statue?



I mean isn't the current action of removing statues etc, just creating a wider divide between communities?

[Erick Estrada]

Of course I pulled that out of my ass but I'm willing to bet it's not far off. How many Canadians even notice it when entering? It's not a lot different to the Redskins thing where most natives don't care and it's a small group that are putting their life efforts into it.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

I can understand this sentiment, although I'm not sure I agree with it. But in that case, wouldn't the best thing to do be to move the statue somewhere else? Macdonald's an important historical figure, and as noted, all such figures likely held views we consider abhorrent. This "let's sanitize history" project some people seem to be on makes me uncomfortable... likely has something to do with its orthodox approach to everything.

It would be interesting if everyone who determined that his statue were to be taken down had to have their entire life history on record to be judged over 100 years later.

"Here used to stand a statue of John A. MacDonald. A founder of Canadian Federation and a proponent of Residential Schools for Aboriginals in the early 1900s.

It was taken down by a group of people in 2018 comprised of, by name....*and enter all of their misdemeanors based on standards 100+ years after their deaths."

[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

I can understand this sentiment, although I'm not sure I agree with it. But in that case, wouldn't the best thing to do be to move the statue somewhere else? Macdonald's an important historical figure, and as noted, all such figures likely held views we consider abhorrent. This "let's sanitize history" project some people seem to be on makes me uncomfortable... likely has something to do with its orthodox approach to everything.

I don't think it is fair to equate the removal of statues or monuments with sanitizing history. Whether or not there is a statue of MacDonald on the steps of Victoria City Hall does not affect the dissemination of good information about who he was or what he did. Moreover, the statement from the Mayor's office indicates that this is precisely not what is happening, but that efforts are underway to "recontextualize" MacDonald's monument. This suggests to me that if anything the eventual replacement will provide a fuller historical picture.