Kitchener statue project boosters to unveil Sir John A. Macdonald statue
The citizen donor group behind the rejected proposal to install 22 life-sized statues of prime ministers in Victoria Park will unveil a new statue of Sir John A. Macdonald at its first temporary home, the Kitchener Aud, on Jan. 9.
Kitchener city council voted 8-1 against the original statue project when results of an online public survey were released in February of last year, indicating 79 per cent of 2,441 respondents said they did not support the concept.
Jim Rodger, a member of the donor group behind the initiative, said he hopes the public will change their minds after seeing an example of what the statues could look like.
"We didn't anticipate the degree that negative thoughts were actually at [when the survey results came out]," said Rodger.
"But we also put that down to gross misunderstanding of the whole project. With the city we weren't allow to complete the site plan or do an environmental assessment plan so the public were reacting on an incomplete vision of what we were talking about. The way the process worked is they asked people to react to something they knew nothing about before they saw what we were actually talking about."
Residents who voted against the project in the online survey had called the project's taste and aesthetic into question. One commenter stated, "Entirely inappropriate for neighbourhood, for location. Aesthetically unappealing, clutter, non-representative of our current Canada, or even the city. Terrible idea all around."
The statue project in Victoria Park would have cost $2 million in total. Project organizers had asked city council for $300,000, over three years, to cover the cost of the statue bases as well as electrical and landscaping elements.
The statue of Macdonald will stay at the Aud for one month, and then be moved to THEMUSEUM on King Street West in downtown Kitchener.
Rodger said the group hopes to find a permanent outdoor location for the statue by Canada Day 2015.
The piece was sculpted by Wellesley artist Ruth Abernethy, who entitled it, "A Canadian Conversation." It shows Macdonald standing between two 19th century-style chairs. Members of the public are invited to sit in the chairs, which are engraved with over 30 symbols and clues that are inspired by MacDonald's life in office.
The statue was paid for by the donor group, who had not calculated the total cost as of Thursday.