Charlottetown has no plans for boxed-up John A statue, but some want it shown again — differently

Three years after the City of Charlottetown removed its prominently displayed John A Macdonald sculpture, the mayor says there are no immediate plans for what to do with it — but the city is open to ideas.

The statue of Canada's first prime minister created by Colorado artist Mike Halterman was removed from its perch on a bench at the corner of Queen Street and Victoria Row in the spring of 2021 after a year of public debate.

It has since been crated and stored on the grounds of the city's public works buildings. A portrait of Macdonald that the city had in its collection is also in storage.

"I think it was a good decision," Mayor Philip Brown said this week.

"Because when you look at the work that went into the statue with the artist from Denver… and then the portrait… these are both pieces of art. We wanted to ensure that there was protection from any damage or any possible or potential damage to them."

Public debate around the statue began to mushroom in the spring of 2020 at a time when other Canadian cities were also grappling with monuments and the legacy of colonialism and residential schools.

Macdonald, one of the founding fathers of Canada at the 1864 Charlottetown Conference, is also widely recognized as a main architect of the residential school system that removed generations of Indigenous children from their parents and home communities. Statues of his likeness were being questioned and in some cases toppled as the 2020s arrived.

Here on P.E.I., critics called for the statue's removal for nearly a year while the city said it was consulting First Nations, historians and other cities about what to do with it. 

It was vandalized several times with paint and once with seafood chowder before council finally voted to hide it from view.

The statue was swiftly removed in the early hours of June 1, 2021. That was the day after demonstrators placed pairs of children's shoes around the statue to represent children whose remains were detected in unmarked graves on the grounds of the former Kamloops Indian Residential School, according to an announcement days earlier that had rocked the country.

At the time, Coun. Julie McCabe introduced the resolution for removal and said she was sorry it took such a "horrendous revelation" to change councillors' minds.

Councillors had previously voted to keep the statue in place, but planned to make modifications to show a more complete version of Canada's history.

This week the mayor said that could still happen, though the city has not made any decisions about the long-term plans for its John A. Macdonald artwork.

"We put it on hold," Brown said. "But down the road, let's say the provincial government decides to go with a provincial history and natural science museum. I think that could be part of it again, explaining the full history."