LILLEY: Sir John A's statue at Queen's Park is free at last

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After five years of being boxed up, Sir John A. is free again.

The statue of Canada’s first prime minister on the grounds of Queen’s Park has been boarded up since 2020, but Wednesday morning workers began dismantling what was originally a protective cover.

A news release issued by the office of the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly said that the decision to remove the boarding was taken on May 2. Prior to the boards coming down, the statue was cleaned and given a protective coating to try to protect it from future vandalism.

“Violence and acts of vandalism will not be tolerated, and the Legislative Protective Service will actively monitor the statue and grounds,” Speaker Donna Skelly said in a statement.

Daniel Tate, a local activist who was charged after spray painting the words “Free John” on the plywood around the statue, praised the removal of those boards.

“This is a great day for Canada. Sir John A. Macdonald, our nation’s founder, and the visionary of a unified Canada, has finally been freed,” Tate said.

Despite calls for Premier Doug Ford to take down the boarding over the years, it was never his call. Ford, just like any other premier, doesn’t have authority over the Legislative Precinct — that resides with the Speaker.

“I’ve been working on getting that box taken off,” Ford told reporters in May. “I can’t wait. I’m getting a lot of messages. So yeah, we’re freeing John A.”

The decision to board up the statue in 2020 was made by then Speaker Ted Arnott.

In the wake of the death of George Floyd in the United States in the spring of 2020, protests sprouted in cities across North America. The target in Canada was anything seen as colonial or what protesters could put the white supremacist label on.

Sir John A. Macdonald’s statue was targeted many times, covered in paint and vandalized in other ways. That’s when Arnott, as Speaker, ordered the statue boarded up to protect it and then turned it over to the legislature’s Board of Internal Economy.

The board is a committee that makes decisions on how the legislature functions, and each official party is equally represented.

Since the Liberals didn’t have official party status from 2018 until 2025, it was a tie vote anytime this issue came up. The Progressive Conservatives wanted the boarding to come down, the NDP wanted the boarding to stay.

A legislative committee was even struck to hold hearings around the province on this and other historical representations, which at times turned into nothing more than activists publicly denouncing Sir John A. and all of Canada’s past.

After the election in February, the Liberals regained official party status and helped break the tie. So yes, if you want to thank anyone for the box around Sir John A. coming down, thank a Liberal because they joined with the PCs to break the tie.

That said, Ford and his government could have made a bigger fuss about this, they could have stood up for Canada’s history. The premier could have used his bully pulpit and individual MPPs inside the PC caucus could have spoken up as well, all with an aim to get the NDP to change their stance.

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Back in 2020 though, and for several years after that, it wasn’t fashionable to defend Sir John A. or Canada’s past. Being patriotic about our country was definitely not popular among the elites of our country, among many young people or the so-called progressive left.

That’s all changed with the election of Donald Trump and the talk of Canada becoming the 51st state. Loving Canada has become cool again for the people who only recently were calling the country a post-national state with no core identity and accusing the whole country of genocide.

Will that love extend to Sir John A. Macdonald?

We shall see.

For now, though, Canadians should stand tall and stand free with Sir John A. and his statue at Queen’s Park.

blilley@postmedia.com