No Borders Media reports on Facebook that protesters have thrown down the statue of Sir John A. Macdonald in Place du Canada. Photo from them. Links to come.
Seems this was part of, or following a Defund the Police march Saturday afternoon.
Update: Stories from Radio-Canada, CBC, La Presse.
Further photos from Twitter:
Is it a good thing that Time Out Market has put a terrasse on Phillips Square with the intention of using this public space for private use?
How is that different from any other restaurant who’s allowed to put a terrase in the street in good weather?
Based on the article, it sounds like there is no food being served on site – you need to go collect your order from Time Out Market. The terrasse is public and it has been there for a couple of months already. This just sounds like a clever sponsorship deal that allows the city to get some extra cash in exchange for something that was already there.
Kate, save your post and re-read it in February when its -30C and half the restaurants will have closed in downtown MTL.
This may all be relevant, but there’s a sign in the picture saying the terrasse belongs to Time Out.
Forgive me if I’m a little salty about hints of enclosure.
Quebecor had its investigative journalists dig into the supposed generosity of the Desmarais family toward the Montreal Heart Institute, and found that there’s more to it than meets the eye, including a company QMI says is prepared to sell private medical data to pharmaceutical companies – a claim it has already denied – this in an economic climate where the CAQ’s economy minister, Pierre Fitzgibbon, is on record as saying he’s quite happy about monetizing our medical data. At play is a potentially profitable new heart drug.
We knew this year’s marathon was cancelled, but the most recent organizer now says they won’t be doing it any more in future. The organizer says it wasn’t profitable, but is that really the point? Why should a Montreal foot race have to make money for an American organizer?
Races do not need for be run by for profit organizations anyway, American or otherwise. The purpose should not be to turn a profit, just to put on an excellent athletic event while covering costs. (According to this amateur runner.)
Le Devoir’s Jeanne Corriveau gives us the history of Jarry Park; although she mentions that it was named for Raoul Jarry, a councillor in the area in the 1920s, she doesn’t add the odd fact that the adjoining street is named for a different, unrelated Jarry, landowner Stanislas Blégnier dit Jarry.
I also missed last week a history of Mount Royal park, done by another of their writers.
Weird choice of header picture. Why the pope when the area is clearly known historically for so many other things than that one single event.
It was a pretty big deal at the time. 350,000 people crowded into the park – it must have been a real mess afterwards.
Quebec is still insisting that four small record stores pay the hefty fines issued last year when they stayed open past legal closing time on Record Store Day.
And topically, today is Record Store Day, postponed from April. Actually, they’ve spread it over three days, so also Sept 26 and Oct 24.
I think the new releases are spread over the three days. But maybe this will spread the last minute rush. Or maybe it will make things worse, because the stores will only let a few people in at a time.
I know we’ve been having this conversation on Twitter too, but while these fines were issued by Quebec, not the city, Projet Montreal does control zoning & commercial property tax collection – both of which would be perfect for helping Phonopolis and the others out of this jam… unless all their talk about helping businesses in the pandemic is just more hot air.
Projet Montreal talks a good game about helping small businesses in the pandemic and fighting gentrification but they’re just good at blocking off streets, pretty street furniture, and stenciling flowers over the potholes.
Maybe the city can send over some clowns 😀
It’s a slow news day, and a new wave of drama from the Museum of Fine Arts is percolating in the media, along with a related tale about Quebec withdrawing a $10M grant it gave the museum earlier this year to create a special Riopelle wing.
Just as well, really. Riopelle isn’t all that.
I never understood why Riopelle is such a big deal. Borduas, McEwan, Goodwin.. There’s lots of way more interesting contemporary artists de chez nous of that period.
Ian 16:51 on 2020-08-29 Permalink
Good riddance. I’m surprised nobody did it sooner.
EmilyG 17:04 on 2020-08-29 Permalink
Good.
thomas 17:27 on 2020-08-29 Permalink
So vandalism will convince people to defund the police?
Dominic 17:31 on 2020-08-29 Permalink
This is a good thing.
mare 18:51 on 2020-08-29 Permalink
And nobody stole the head? Or put it on a stake? Colour me surprised.
Douglas 20:17 on 2020-08-29 Permalink
City needs to put the statue back on asap.
Kids pick up a history book for the first time in their lives and suddenly they are “woke”.
Blork 20:33 on 2020-08-29 Permalink
Nope. This is bad. This is not how you do things in a civilized country, especially in the current climate. This act was juvenile and illegal, and the backlash will also be juvenile and illegal and probably violent.
We are not immune to the insanity that is prevalent in the US right now.
Dhomas 21:29 on 2020-08-29 Permalink
John A. MacDonald is a part of our history. Taking down his statue will not erase the fact that he was Canada’s first Prime Minister. Was he perfect? No, but he was a product of his time. Personally, I think he was pretty shitty to First Nation peoples, but I have the benefit of several decades of hindsight. Still, I’d much prefer if the statue remained with a plaque explaining who he was and why he is controversial by today’s standards. It would be much more of a learning experience for everyone, rather than allowing people to tear down whatever they feel doesn’t agree with their world view.
Side note: I’m not exactly sure what John A. MacDonald has to do with defunding the police.
Kate 21:34 on 2020-08-29 Permalink
Dhomas, Macdonald was the main founder of the RCMP, widely used out west to suppress indigenous and Métis folks.
Kevin 22:12 on 2020-08-29 Permalink
Not the first time this statue was beheaded.
Dominic 05:42 on 2020-08-30 Permalink
“Personally, I think he was pretty shitty to First Nation peoples”
“I have reason to believe that the agents as a whole … are doing all they can, by refusing food until the Indians are on the verge of starvation, to reduce the expense.” Macdonald in the House of Commons in 1882.
We should never honour men who supported and cheered on the mass-starvation of indigenous people, by blanketing it in some mock-protection of history. What kind of nation celebrates a racist who caused the death of thousands on purpose simply because that person was elected to office? The statue belongs in a museum, and his story taught to children, but not in display to all citizens. I’d rather see a dozen statues to Terry Fox or Viola Desmond or Dr Wilder Penfield before we put the JAM statue back.
Dhomas 07:36 on 2020-08-30 Permalink
@Kate: I hadn’t considered the RCMP angle. Thanks for clarifying; it now makes more sense to me.
@Dominic: that is pretty shitty. I had not heard this particular quote of his. I am glad I have now, and I would hope others also learn of how JAM was a genocidal maniac.
Maybe we should move the statue to a museum, and maybe this latest incident will convince the powers that be to do just that. I don’t agree with these methods, though. I definitely agree with the right to protest, but I think it should be done peacefully and without violence or damage to property.
Michael Black 08:14 on 2020-08-30 Permalink
But this isn’t about the guy, it’s about a mob pulling down a statue.
If it had been a group of neo-nazis stomping around and doing damage, would people be cheering them on?
150 years ago, Thomas Scott was not an elected official, yet he had a gang, and he was part of the process that expected people who were already in Red River to roll over and let Canada spread. He and his gang beat and lynched Norbert Parisien, they say my great, great grandfather stopped it, but too late. Norbert had been imprisoned by Scott, escaped, and in fear shot my great grandmother’s brother. Yet the family didn’t want any retaliation. Where were people yesterday taking responsibility? When the expeditionary force got out to Red River, in essence the forerunner of the mounties (complete with Sam Steele), there was a lot mire violence, and it seems from that force. People just talk about Louis Riel, but a lot of people were hated. How is that different from the mob yesterday deciding what’s “right”?
I’m tired of people being so outraged by public figures, when everyone who came over were part of it. They carried the diseases, they spread it, and they moved in as population diminished. They benefitted, and they too were racist. They elected those officials that are now so hated. They were not really different from the mounties or the prime minister . That prime minister wasn’t the cause of the racism my great, great grandmother felt, it was from everyday people.
It’s convenient to blame a long dead official, but real change won’t come from reacting to some historical factoid, but looking deep and realizing the problem isn’t some other. People should be thinking about this hatred, maybe it’s really that they hate themselves.
It’s easy to be against something, harder to actual like something. But there is a whole lot that needs to be done, and it won’t change by slogans or just reacting to the tip of the iceberg.
And on top of all that, tearing down a statue doesn’t do a thing to change police abuse. There too, people are outraged by the most blatant physical abuse, but tye story is way deeper.
Douglas 08:34 on 2020-08-30 Permalink
Be honest. Those kids that pulled it down don’t care about aboriginals.
They care about anarchy first and foremost and expressing wokeness.
MacDonald was just a target of their teenage angst. I’d put up 2 statues in response but that’s just me.
dwgs 08:48 on 2020-08-30 Permalink
Thank you Michael, that was very well said.
walkerp 09:40 on 2020-08-30 Permalink
He’s also super boring and all those outraged by this can barely remember what he actually did.
I’d rather they put up a big statue of a cool owl done by some crazy artist.
Kate 09:59 on 2020-08-30 Permalink
Thank you, Michael Black.
Douglas, what you don’t know about young people would fill a book. Teenage angst may exist, but it stays home and listens to sad or angry music. These people put themselves out there, risking police brutality and arrest, to make a point about the kind of society they want to live in. What did you do yesterday?
Meezly 10:15 on 2020-08-30 Permalink
I fully support the toppling of statues of problematic historical figures. Whether you were a Hungarian who toppled the statue of Stalin, or an angry middle class Montreal student who just toppled the statue of JAM, toppling statues of leaders who had committed horrible acts against humanity is a powerful symbolic act. Sure, it’s not going to change people’s minds overnight. But for many, including myself, it signifies a first step towards ending the myth of white supremacy.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-people-are-toppling-monuments-to-racism/
MarcG 11:48 on 2020-08-30 Permalink
For people who say that it should have a plaque put on it or be moved to a museum rather than taken down like this: there was plenty of opportunity for that over the past few years when it started being vandalized on a regular basis. You snooze, you lose.
Jebediah Pallindrome 14:31 on 2020-08-30 Permalink
Guys c’mon now, this one’s easy:
Toppling statues in Eastern Europe 30 years ago = good, liberty
Toppling statues in Canada now = bad, cancel culture
Remember, they’re only genocidal racist maniacs if they’re from another country. When they’re from here they’re ‘flawed’ or ‘controversial’.
Also, all statues erected in the 19th century are inherently good because no one from a long time ago ever made a mistake, and they certainly didn’t have any kind of political agenda.
All public spaces with pre-existing statues ought to be secured against any kind of change – in perpetuity – despite whatever new information may come to light. All historians are dangerous radicals, unless they confirm what you already think you know.
Oh and most importantly: removing statues erases history. The Soviets destroyed all Nazi monuments and this is why no one in Germany knows what happened between 1933 and 1945. Total. Mystery.