Article content

More statues and historical signs are being torn down this summer in B.C.

The latest, carted off this month, are a New Westminster statue of Matthew Begbie, the province’s first chief justice, and an old Vancouver school sign bearing the name of British tycoon Cecil Rhodes.

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or Douglas Todd: Want to tear down a statue? Try these two tests first Back to video

Their elimination was preceded by Victoria’s removal last year of a statue of Sir John A. Macdonald, Canada’s first prime minister. Unusually, Victoria council’s near-clandestine move sparked a helpful cross-Canada debate about the complex history of this country.

Decisions about public monuments are always made by those in power, as demonstrated before and after the fall of dictators Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong and Muammar Gaddafi. But these days, many monuments are being summarily blotted out, mainly because a relatively small group happens to gain enough clout to push through an ideology.

Shouldn’t we as a society develop an actual process for determining whether statues and monuments should be dismantled, or erected to begin with?