statues

Saturday June 12, 2020

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday June 12, 2020

‘Their time has come’: Calls increase for removal of statues linked to colonial legacy

As statues and monuments of leaders from bygone eras are being toppled in response to growing calls to end systemic racism and discrimination, the sentiment is also growing here in Canada.

Sir John A. Macdonald available at Redbubble.com

Just this week, protesters in Belgium vandalized a statue of King Leopold II, whose rule of Congo led to the death of 10 million people. At Oxford University, there are calls to remove a statue of Cecil Rhodes, an architect of the apartheid. And in Bristol, England, a statue of slave trader Edward Colston was dragged through the streets and dumped into the harbour.

Meanwhile in the United States, several statues honouring Confederate generals and slave owners have also been taken down in response to the anti-Black racism protests spurred by the killing of George Floyd.

Canada is not immune to this, either. A Change.org petition calling for the removal of a Sir John A. Macdonald statue in Montreal has received more than 10,000 signatures as of Wednesday evening.

Macdonald, Canada’s first prime minister, was an architect of the residential school system and led starvation tactics against Indigenous people in the Prairies.

“He was very proactive in starvation of Indigenous people, so why would we want a statue of him?” said Nakuset, executive director of the Native Women’s Shelter of Montreal.

David MacDonald, a political science professor at the University of Guelph, told CTV News Channel that he believes these statues should be taken down.

“(Macdonald) certainly was the architect of several genocides in Canada, therefore I think it’s time that we continue to address his legacies and there shouldn’t be bridges and schools and all sorts of things named after someone who so blatantly went out to destroy Indigenous nations in this country,” he said.

Montreal Mayor Valerie Plants told reporters on Wednesday that there are no immediate plans to take down the statue, but she is looking at ways to address systemic racism in the community.

“There is also an opportunity to create a dialogue between what was the past and what was right then or what was acceptable then, where at one point we’re like, as a society, ‘enough,’” she said.

November 9, 2018

A similar statue of Macdonald was taken down in Victoria, B.C., in 2018. Its artist said he is ashamed to admit that he didn’t know about residential schools until after he crafted the statue and now believes these monuments should also be taken down.

“We still need to confront our racism towards Indigenous people and if we have to tear down a few sculptures, great,” said John Dann.

Similar petitions in Toronto are calling for the city to rename Dundas Street, which is named after Henry Dundas, who delayed the abolition of slavery in the British Empire, and for Ryerson University to take down its statue of the school’s founder Egerton Ryerson,who also helped develop the residential schools. (CTV News)

 

Statues from r/canadapoliticshumour

 

Saturday March 10, 2018

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday March 10, 2018

Trump announcement on talks with North Korea gets mixed reactions

World leaders welcomed prospects for a possible thaw in the long standoff over North Korea’s nuclear weapons program on Friday after U.S. President Donald Trump said he was prepared to hold an unprecedented meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

January 16, 2018

Trump and Kim prompted jitters around the world last year as they exchanged bellicose insults over the North’s attempts to develop a nuclear weapon capable of hitting the United States, which it has pursued in defiance of UN Security Council resolutions.

But tension eased around last month’s Winter Olympics in South Korea, laying the groundwork for what would be the first meeting between leaders from North Korea and the U.S., and the biggest foreign policy gamble for Trump since he took office in January last year.

“A meeting is being planned,” Trump said on Twitter after accepting an invitation to meet from Kim. There was no date or venue yet for the meeting although it could take place in May.

A spokesperson for Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland’s said in a statement that Canada has “always believed that a diplomatic solution to the North Korean nuclear crisis is essential and possible.”

August 12, 2017

Canada and the U.S. recently co-hosted a summit in Vancouver to discuss efforts to find a peaceful path to deal with North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic weapon programs.

Japan, however, remained cautious.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Trump, in a call on Thursday, vowed to continue to enforce sanctions until Pyongyang took “tangible steps … toward denuclearization,” the White House said in a statement late Thursday.

“Japan and the United States will not waver in their firm stance that they will continue to put maximum pressure until North Korea takes concrete action toward the complete, verifiable and irreversible end to nuclear missile development,” Abe told reporters in Tokyo. (Source: CBC News) 

 

Wednesday August 24, 2011

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday August 24, 2011

Gaddafi Is Gone, is Assad Next?

Taking inspiration from the rapid unraveling of the regime in Libya, thousands of Syrians poured into the streets Monday and taunted President Bashar Assad with shouts that his family’s 40-year dynasty will be the next dictatorship to crumble.

Assad, who has tried in vain to crush the 5-month-old revolt, appears increasingly out of touch as he refuses to acknowledge the hundreds of thousands of people demanding his ouster, analysts say. Instead, he blames the unrest on Islamic extremists and thugs.

But many observers say Assad should heed the lessons of Libya.

“Gadhafi is gone; now it’s your turn, Bashar!” protesters shouted in several cities across the country hours after Assad dismissed calls to step down during an interview on state TV. Security forces opened fire in the central city of Homs, killing at least one person.

“Leaders should know that they will be able to remain in power as long as they remain sensitive to the demands of the people,” Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, according to Turkey’s Anatolia news agency.

Turkey, a former close ally of Syria and an important trade partner, has grown increasingly frustrated with Damascus over its deadly crackdown. The violence has left Syria facing the most serious international isolation in decades, with widespread calls for Assad to step down.

Human rights groups say more than 2,000 people – most of them unarmed protesters – have been killed in the government’s crackdown on the uprising. (CTV)