Late last month, the council in the Township of Wilmot, Ontario, (part of the regional municipality of Waterloo) unanimously voted to reinstall the Prime Ministers Path, a collection of statues featuring nine of Canada’s former leaders. The vote to revive the public art installation was the culmination of years of division and faulty historical interpretations, but the result is another example that, perhaps, we are finally coming to grips with our history and are able to view it in a more nuanced way.
The origins of the project go back to 2013 when the idea of an educational walkway featuring Canada’s prime ministers was originally floated. It was intended as part of the celebration of the country’s sesquicentennial in 2017 and had the support of Governor General David Johnston.
Wilfrid Laurier University, in nearby Waterloo, had initially agreed to host the statues in 2015 but later meekly walked away from the project. In 2016, Wilmot Township stepped up to give the statues a home in Baden. The roster included the likenesses of Sir John A. Macdonald, Sir Robert Borden, William Lyon Mackenzie King, Lester B. Pearson, and Kim Campbell.
(There are four other statues in storage that have not been on display yet. The men who served after Macdonald’s death in 1891 before Laurier was elected in 1896: John Abbott, John Thompson, Mackenzie Bowell, and Charles Tupper.)
In a now-familiar story, the Macdonald statue came under attack in 2020. Protestors threw red paint on the artwork to draw attention to their understanding of Macdonald’s role in creating the residential school system. As a result, that statue was removed. In 2021, the council voted to put the remaining statues in storage and end the project entirely. Rather than use history to educate, council decided to hide from it.
The question of the statues divided the township. Wilmot hired consultants to collect extensive community feedback. Elections in 2022 brought new voices to the town council and, finally, on July 28, the decision was made to bring the bronze effigies out of storage for public display once again.
Ruth Abernethy, who sculpted beautiful statues of Macdonald and Pearson that are part of the Prime Ministers Path, summed up the problem succinctly when she addressed council in July: “Bronze characters kept in storage represent an acceptance of discord, a retreat to entrenched ideologies, and an unwillingness to find common ground.”
