Genocide and Nation-destroyer

When Holding Court was erected on Picton Main Street in July 2015, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRCC) had already started publishing its findings and recommendations, including John A. Macdonald's political ambitions and racist attitudes lead him to initiate and prosecute a campaign of cultural genocide against Indigenous Peoples. The TRCC's findings with regard to Macdonald's priimary responsibility for the creation of Indian Residential Schools in Canada were perhaps the first glimpse that many Canadians had of Macdonald's dark legacy as their first Prime Minister and Superintendent-General of Indian Affiars. The TRCC's findings in 2015 re: Macdonald's cultural genocide against Indigenous children and families across Canada joined a longer-standing awareness among Canadian historians of Macdonald's campaign of physical genocide, including his deliberate, widespread, and ongoing use of hunger and starvation, against First Nations on the Prairies.

Macdonald's cultural and physical genocide against Indigenous Peoples was a matter of public record and, therefore, should have been known to every member of the municipal council of Prince Edward County when they approved the installation of Holding Court in July 2015. Macdonald's cultural and physical genocide against Indigenous People were undeniably known to every member of council when they ignored calls for public consultation and went ahead with the re-installation of Holding Court on Picton Main Street in December 2019. This deliberate act betrayed Indigenous Peoples and made council complicit in white-washing Macdonald's crimes against humanity.

In the wake of Black Lives Matter's protests in the United States, Canada, and around the world, council was forced to make-good on its months-old promise of public consultation about Holding Court. The process has fallen short of what was promised - even what was promised a few weeks ago.

Nonetheless, let's hope council will finally act honourably and do what's right, not merely what's popular or expedient.

I suggest:

1. Holding Court be removed immediately from Picton Main Street.
2. Holding Court should not be re-installed in Prince Edward County until there is public consensus about:
   1. the statue's relocation, and
   2. the wording and other content of interpretive panels that will be displayed prominently alongside the statue.