Contractors examine the statue of Edward Cornwallis, a controversial historical figure, in a city park in Halifax on Jan. 30, 2018.Andrew Vaughan/The Canadian Press
Halifax city councillors have voted to immediately remove a statue of the city's controversial founder, British military officer Edward Cornwallis, from a downtown park.
The decision is a temporary measure aimed at diffusing tensions over the future of the statue, which spiked over the weekend after the Assembly of Nova Scotia Mi'kmaq Chiefs issued a statement demanding the monument be taken down.
The demand comes less than six months after Halifax councillors voted to form a special advisory committee to recommend how the city will honour its controversial founder, who infamously issued a bounty on the scalps of Mi'kmaqs.
The council voted 12-4 to remove the bronze figure from its pedestal; an exact date for the removal has not been set but the statue will be placed into storage until a decision is made on its long-term fate.
That decision appears likely to include input from Mi'kmaq leaders. Council's motion included a measure to re-engage Mi'kmaq leaders in the city's ongoing discussion about how to commemorate Cornwallis appropriately while acknowledging the atrocities he committed against indigenous people. In a statement issued after the vote, Chief Terrance Paul, co-chair of the Assembly of Nova Scotia Mi'kmaq Chiefs, said they are pleased with the council's decision and hopes it will lead to renewed – and prompt – discussions.
"Today we heard the voices of leaders who genuinely want to make efforts for reconciliation with the Mi'kmaq of Nova Scotia," said Mr. Paul. "These important conversations have just begun."
Last fall, the chiefs agreed to work with the municipality to form the committee, half of which would be comprised of nominations put forward by the Mi'kmaq. While the chiefs had submitted a list of names they favoured last fall, it had not yet made it to council, which has the final vote on who will be appointed to its ranks.
In their statement, issued last Friday, the chiefs said that the process has taken "far too long." In addition to demanding the statue be removed immediately, they also declared their withdrawal from the committee process.
"We have been more than patient to see movement on this," Chief Bob Gloade of Millbrook First Nation said in the statement. "The Mi'kmaq need to see action now, and that is why we voted for the statue to be immediately removed."
Addressing the situation, including the potential for violent protests during a planned demonstration this coming weekend, was at the top of Halifax councillors' agenda on Tuesday.
For more than an hour and with several Mi'kmaq leaders looking on, councillors engaged in an emotional debate over whether to remove the statue now and place it in temporary storage, a move that was recommended in a staff report prepared over the weekend.
"The statue has increasingly become a flashpoint for protests. It also represents a hindrance to engaging Mi'kmaq and Indigenous persons in dialogue about how to commemorate our shared history and to engage in dialogue on reconciliation," the report reads. It suggested that removing the statue now would both protect the statue and reduce the volatility around discussions of commemoration.
"The most immediate concern around the statue is one of public safety," the report reads. "The stated aim of protestors is to bring down the Cornwallis statue," it says, going on to warn that protests planned for next weekend are likely to be less peaceful than those held last July.
Several protests were held at the site of the statue throughout the summer; for a period, it was covered with a tarp. Tensions dissipated when council agreed to form the special committee in the spirit of truth and reconciliation (a similar motion was defeated in 2016).
During Tuesday's debate, Councillor Tim Outhit said he would agree to the motion, which included a directive to re-engage the Mi'kmaq chiefs in the process, but "with sadness and a little resentment on the process."
"It's the right time, but it's the wrong reason," he said, adding that voting to remove the statue to prevent violence disappointed him. "That is not truth and reconciliation."
Councillor Matt Whitman said he would not support the motion because he was in favour of seeing the original process that council and the chiefs agreed on through.
"This motion is about giving in to pressure and not sticking to what all of us unanimously agreed upon," he said. "By removing the statue … we're ending a dialogue, we're not starting a dialogue."
Councillor Richard Zurawski disagreed vehemently. "Here we sit, a bunch of white men and women … making judgements as to what we are supposed to do. Well, that's not really reconciliation," he said. "History is not made by statues. History is written in books. It is discussed. It is in museums.
"If we want reconciliation, we will pull down the statue immediately … and take away this visible symbol of supremacy."