Manitoba premier called 'tone-deaf' for saying monarchs’ statues will be rebuilt, comments on Canadian history

Manitoba Premier Brian Pallister announced Wednesday that the statues of the two queens on Manitoba legislature grounds destroyed by protestors on Canada day will be rebuilt.

“Tearing down is a lot simpler than building up,” said Pallister in a Wednesday news conference, adding that he felt "disgust and disappointment" at the vandalism of the statues’ according to the National Post.

“I believe that Canada has been, and will always be, I hope, a nation that is an example to those around the world of our dedication to building," said Pallister.

The statues of Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth II were toppled by protestors during a demonstration regarding the deaths of Indigenous children at residential schools.

The Queen Victoria Statue, placed near the entrance to legislative grounds, was brought to the ground by protestors, covered in red paint resembling blood, and was beheaded. The head of the state was found the following day in the nearby Assiniboine River.

The smaller statue of Queen Elizabeth II, located close to the lieutenant-governor’s residence according to the National Post, was brought to the ground as well, but wasn’t vandalized any more than that.

Pallsiter said that while assessments of damages are ongoing, the statues would be replaced.

The Queen Elizabeth statue would be placed in the same spot as before, but the Queen Victoria one may end up in a different spot on legislative grounds, according to Pallister.

The statue’s wording may also be "updated" to help people "in understanding more fully the history as it’s been interpreted by modern view."

"That’s a consultative process we’re going to continue," said Pallister, adding that no one involved in the destruction of the statues will be part of this consultation.

Pallister continued by saying that it was always the plan to update statues' wordings to "more accurately reflect history."

Pallister’s comments on Canada’s history were slammed by critics, including the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs.

"The people who came here to this country … didn’t come here to destroy anything. They came here to build," said Pallister. "They came to build better … and they built farms, and they built businesses, and they built communities and churches, too."

The interim Grand Chief Leroy Constant said in a prepared statement: "To minimize, romanticize and celebrate the settler colonialism that displaced First Nations from their ancient and sacred lands in the most brutal and heinous ways, the way he did in his comments, is unconscionable and a desecration to the graves of the ancestors on which the legislature is built and on which the City of Winnipeg now lies."

In response to Pallister’s comments, Nahanni Fontaine, who is Indigenous and the justice critic for the Opposition New Democrats said he was revising history, according to the National Post.

"Reconciliation is impossible when you have a settler at the helm denying, romanticizing and minimizing colonization,” Fontaine wrote on Twitter. "Canada was forged in the blood of our Peoples, on the bodies of our women and children, and in the theft of our lands."

"This is the hard truth: Canada’s prosperity was built on Indigenous suffering and an indifference to Indigenous lives and rights," said Liberal Leader Dougald Lamont, adding that Pallister’s remarks were shameful and tone-deaf.