CONFOUNDING FATHERS

HOW CHARLOTTETOWN, BIRTHPLACE OF CONFEDERATION, STRUGGLES WITH AN UGLY HISTORY OF WRONGS AGAINST INDIGENOUS PEOPLES

- Kate McKenna

BY THE TIME THE SIR JOHN A. MACDONALD STATUE was loaded onto a truck and driven away, it had already lived through a series of public humiliations. One night in March 2021, a Charlottetown resident poured a sticky, milky fluid that looked suspiciously like seafood chowder on his head. Before that, the statue was splashed with yellow paint. After both were cleaned up, a handprint of red paint appeared over his mouth, a symbol of solidarity with missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls.

But Charlottetown was intent on keeping him. The city spent about $5,000 to clean him up, dust him off and put him back in his spot, right in the middle of downtown.

Macdonald was etched in bronze: sitting hunched on a bench, arm outstretched, a space held for any passerby who chose to sit next to him. He wore a suit. His top hat was placed next to him on the bench. His most recognizable features-curly hair and an elongated nose-differentiated him from other Fathers of Confederation. His face was arranged into a thoughtful expression, but his body was arched towards any potential companions, permanently engaged in debate.

He'd been there since the city paid $75,000 to commission the statue in 2009 as part of a million-dollar federal program to promote Charlottetown's role in the formation of Canada. Many people loved him and took pictures with him. But then, sentiment started to sour.

In 2015, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission found that Canada's residential school system-of which John A. Macdonald was an architect, armed with the explicit goal of taking "the Indian out of the child"-amounted to "cultural genocide." Groups representing Indigenous people living on P.E.I., including the Epekwitk Assembly of Councils and the Native Council of P.E.I., called for more context to be added to the statue, acknowledging Canada's first prime minister's role in creating residential schools.