Do We Need to Topple Watson?

A very public debate in St Catharines, Ontario, provides a valuable case study of one community’s decision to remove a contentious monument. St. Catharines is a small city in central Ontario. A monument—dedicated to a local man who died while serving with serving with the Canadian Army during the Northwest Resistance of 1885—stands in front of City Hall. The conflict began when Métis and First Nations communities of unceded prairie lands defended their ancestral territories from white settlement. Local residents have long been indifferent to the monument. This changed in the spring of 2020. Then, the tragic murders of Black Americans at the hands of police officers drew global attention to widespread systemic racism. The resultant protests also drew global attention to public representations of the past. In St. Catharines, an activist’s petition prompted City Council to bring forward a motion to remove the monument. These events produced active public engagement through three channels: direct lobbying of local officials, traditional mass media coverage, and social media commentary. In this chapter, we attempt to understand the motivations held by individuals on both sides of this conflict. We interviewed eight individuals who had spoken publicly concerning the monument. Based on their responses, we found three common stances among them: they understood they were taking an active view of historical knowledge; they were cognizant of competing interpretations of historical narratives and their representations in public spaces; and they were very much aware of shifting power relations in terms of the production of historical knowledge.