Winnipeg Free Press
JOHN WOODS / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS
Most statues and monuments celebrate European settlers, which doesn t represent Manitoba at the moment, says Melissa Funke, an assistant professor of classics at the University of Winnipeg. (John Woods / Winnipeg Free Press)
The toppling and beheading of a Winnipeg statue erected in the likeness of Queen Victoria has sparked widespread debate about defacing colonial monuments.
The toppling and beheading of a Winnipeg statue erected in the likeness of Queen Victoria has sparked widespread debate about defacing colonial monuments.
But in the wake of vandalism, one academic has been far more focused on who is missing entirely from the inventory of statues on the Manitoba legislature grounds.
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The statues of Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth were tied with ropes and brought down by a crowd that gathered on Canada Day.
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The statue of Queen Victoria, a large structure near the main entrance to the grounds, was covered in red paint and its base had red handprints on it.
The statue’s head was also removed. It was retrieved Friday from the river behind the legislature by a man in a kayak.
A headless statue of Queen Victoria is seen overturned and vandalized at the provincial legislature in Winnipeg, Friday, July 2, 2021. Photo by: Kelly Geraldine Malone
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WINNIPEG Statues of two queens on the grounds of the Manitoba legislature were toppled during a rally over the deaths of Indigenous children at residential schools.
The statues of Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth were tied with ropes and brought down by a crowd that gathered on Canada Day.
The statue of Queen Victoria, a large structure near the main entrance to the grounds, was covered in red paint and its base had red handprints on it.
Winnipeg Free Press
Destruction of statues connected to actual violence visited on Indigenous people By: Niigaan Sinclair | Posted: 7:00 PM CDT Friday, Jul. 2, 2021
Opinion
Five years ago, a group of Indigenous and non-Indigenous volunteers in Manitoba got together to bring attention to an incredible wrong.
Five years ago, a group of Indigenous and non-Indigenous volunteers in Manitoba got together to bring attention to an incredible wrong.
At the Manitoba legislature, the group pointed out, there was no statue commemorating First Nations in the province. Virtually everyone else, including the Métis nation (honoured in 1973 with a statue of Louis Riel), is recognized.
And last week, Cowessess First Nation in Saskatchewan announced preliminary findings of an estimated 751 unmarked graves in the community, about 140 kilometres east of Regina. The unmarked graves are at a cemetery near the former Marieval Indian Residential School.
For many younger Indigenous people, they re only now starting to learn how their families were impacted by the legacy of the schools, Dumas said.
AMC Grand Chief Arlen Dumas said he was disappointed and a little shocked by the actions of those who toppled statues of Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth II at the Manitoba Legislature on Canada Day.
His mother and grandparents went to residential schools, he said, but a curtain of silence over what happened meant he didn t have an appreciation of it until he was an adult.