Put Sir John A. on the ballot

With only a week to go before the election of a new City Council in Kingston, I propose adding a name to the agenda that would energize the campaign and challenge the candidates and the citizens of this city.

How about Sir John A. Macdonald?

Our City Council in 2021 voted that the statue of our first Prime Minister and hometown boy be torn down from the prominent place it had occupied in City Park for 126 years. It remains hidden away somewhere.

A Nanos Research poll earlier this year indicated that more than 70 per cent of Kingstonians want the statue returned to its rightful place of prominence.

Will the new, incoming Council have the courage and leadership skills to tackle this issue?

I believe it is their responsibility to do so.

It won’t be an easy task. It calls for leadership that can craft a solution based on compromise and respect for strongly held opposing opinions.  

It’s certainly an opportunity for some political guru to recognize that in the dying days of this campaign, with what could be some close races, this could be a winning issue with many voters.

Surely, voters deserve to know where candidates stand on the matter. If elected, will they get this issue on the new council agenda and how will they vote on it?

October 23, 1895 was a special day in Kingston, local historian Arthur Milnes wrote in The Whig Standard this past week. In his words, “a date like no other in this city’s proud history.”

“All eyes, locally, provincially and nationally, were on our community for the unveiling and dedication of Sir John A. Macdonald’s commanding City Park statue were underway.”

It was proclaimed a public holiday, the park was filled with dignitaries and ordinary citizens and newspapers across the country wrote glowing stories about the beauty and size of the statue and its importance to Canadians. 

That was then and this is now. Today, Sir John remains in storage somewhere and the prominent place the statue occupied remains bare and a reminder of a past City Council that believed it was doing the right thing in having it hauled away on a flatbed truck early one morning.  

 Much has changed since then. 

The Council decision of 2021 was made during a wave of what critics called Cancel Culture---the attempt to rewrite and wipe out history and individuals judged wrong, hateful and abusive by today’s standards. In the case of Sir John, despite his liberal views on many issues, he shared many of the prejudices of his time, especially related to aboriginals and other minorities.

It was also a time when Canada’s despicable treatment of its aboriginal people was under the microscope and in the headlines. 

Macdonald was a great leader and a great man but far from perfect. His assimilation policies were well intentioned but downright wrong and harmful.

Macdonald’s connection with aboriginal residential schools created by the federal government before he became prime minister and which remained well after he was out of office, is his legacy’s biggest cross to bear. 

Kingston was far from alone in the move to wipe out his memory. 

In 2018 his image was removed from the $ 10 bill. His name was removed from the Ottawa airport which was named in his honour in 1993. Prince Edward Island and B.C. removed a modern statue of Macdonald from their capitals. So did Ontario although it recently returned the statute to its Queen’s Park location. Closer to home, the town of Picton where he argued his first cases as a young lawyer, removed a statue paid for by local residents and displayed prominently on its main street. 

Macdonald’s name has been removed from countless departments and buildings of education, including the Queen’s Law School.   

On the other side of the debate—which polls over the years have indicated is supported by a majority of Canadians--any public discussion of the return of the statue will feature those who recognize his greatness in stringing together a small, far-flung group of British colonies, building a railroad, constructing bridges between the English and French and creating a great nation that remains the envy of most of the rest of the world. 

Even back then the Americans had avaricious intentions for the takeover of land settled by their northern neighbour but Macdonald had a vision and the courage to ensure it did not fall into American hands.

In the words of Macdonald biographer Richard Gwyn: “Had there been no Macdonald there would today be no Canada.” 

Members of the Kingston City Council at the time of its decision to remove the statue have told me they felt blackmailed into taking that position. The statue had several times been vandalized and an unruly crowd held protests that threatened to become violent. Several councillors felt that if they didn’t bow to the mob’s threat to tear down the statue there could be people injured and property destroyed.

Even now, when the public temperature seems to be cooled in the wake of reconciliation measures and consultation with aboriginal groups on a wide range of issues, the statue issue will not go quietly into this good night. 

Macdonald supporters will rightly insist that the statue return to its original place in City Park.  Considering a different location is always a possibility but that, too, would not be easy. Earlier attempts to find another site failed when even the Cataraqui Cemetery Board declined the city’s offer to locate it there where Macdonald’s body is buried. The board cited the high cost of security and repair if protesters resumed their earlier attacks.

Meanwhile, a political decision is needed---especially in this city where Sir John A.’s fingerprints are all over the institutions he created here as our Member of Parliament and PM.

Macdonald may never reach the reverential treatment once afforded him at home and in foreign capitals but surely he deserves better than having his statue stored in a dingy warehouse somewhere---probably cheek to jowl with snow ploughs and old street signs.