Canada's first PM 'too controversial' for commemoration, federal board rules
Minutes from the meeting suggest members agreed Macdonald is now a "polarizing and controversial figure in Canadian history” with "complex" legacies
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Canada’s first prime minister has been deemed too “polarizing and controversial” to warrant any new federally-sponsored commemoration, a federal board recommended.
According to reports published Thursday by Blacklock’s Reporter, the board recommended that Sir John A. Macdonald — who served as Canada’s first and third prime minister — garner no further plaques or commemoration.
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“The Board recommended that Sir John A. Macdonald be commemorated by means of information to be made available on the Parks Canada website and that no plaque be erected,” read minutes of a Dec. 12, 2023 meeting of Parks Canada’s Historic Sites and Monuments Board, obtained by Blacklock’s via an access to information request.
The board reviewed and revised Macdonald’s designation as a National Historic Person in 2024, which according to a statement on a Parks Canada website on Macdonald’s legacy aligns with Call to Action no. 79 of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission — calling on the federal government to “develop a reconciliation framework for Canadian heritage and commemoration.”
Minutes from the meeting suggest members agreed Macdonald is now a “polarizing and controversial figure in Canadian history” with “complex” legacies.
“Given that Macdonald continues to be a polarizing figure, the Board noted the challenge of crafting a statement that views him from multiple perspectives and that there will continue to be public dialogue about Macdonald’s legacy to present-day Canada,” the meeting’s minutes stated.
“The Board then turned to consider whether or not it was appropriate to erect a plaque for Sir John A. Macdonald.”
The board concluded that existing statues and commemorations, including his gravesite at Cataraqui Cemetery in Kingston, were sufficient without introducing more.
Activism over Macdonald’s legacy led to a widespread erasure across Canada, ranging from statues violently toppled to a rash of renamings, including schools and the Ottawa River Parkway — formerly known as the Sir John A. Macdonald Parkway as of 2023 is now known as “Kichi Zibi Mikan.”
A statue of Sir John A. Macdonald at Queen’s Park, unveiled in 1894, spent five years enclosed in a wooden box until the coverings were removed earlier this month.
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