The Prime Minister's Path in Wilmot, Ont. has 4 new statues. Not everyone is pleased | CBC News

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Four statues of former Canadian leaders were added to the Prime Minister's Path project in Wilmot, Ont., on Saturday. Not everyone was pleased.

The contested project, now run by Createscape Waterloo Region, held an afternoon unveiling with the leadership of Wilmot Township at a municipal park by Castle Kilbride in Baden, a small community west of Kitchener.

"Obviously we're very happy that [the project] has found its footing once again," Don Bourgeois, chair of the board and president of Createscape Waterloo Region, told CBC News.

"Our purpose is to help create public art that has that emotional attachment, but also gets people... to have discussion about the future of Canada, the history of Canada, of art and what art is about."

The four new statues depict Sir John Abbott, Sir John Thompson, Sir Mackenzie Bowell and Sir Charles Tupper. They join statues of Sir John A. Macdonald, Kim Campbell, Sir Robert Borden, William Lyon Mackenzie King and Lester B. Pearson.

Around a dozen protesters attended, decrying the project as insensitive and poorly conceived.

The Prime Ministers Path project was first proposed in 2013. The project aimed to honour former Canadian leaders with 22 bronze statues placed in a park to celebrate Canada's 150th birthday.

The project faced controversy from the beginning, however, with Kitchener councillors rejecting the idea of having the statues at Victoria Park in 2014 and Waterloo's Wilfrid Laurier University backing out of the agreement to put the statues at the school in 2016.

The statues would later find a home at Castle Kilbride in the village of Baden that same year.

By 2020, the statue of Sir John A. Macdonald was put in storage after a public call for it to be removed for his role in the residential school system. The project was then cancelled by the township's council in 2021, leading to the removal of the statues.

Last April, Wilmot council voted to proceed with the project. The vote involved giving Createscape Waterloo Region custody of the nine statues it owns, as well as entering into an agreement with the group to display the statues in municipal parkland for the next 20 years.

The project now includes an added educational component, with the Six Nations of the Grand River playing an important role, Bourgeois said.

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Four statues of former Canadian leaders were added to the Prime Minister's Path project in Wilmot, Ont., on Saturday. Not everyone was pleased.
The contested project, now run by Createscape Waterloo Region, held an afternoon unveiling with the leadership of Wilmot Township at a municipal park by Castle Kilbride in Baden, a small community west of Kitchener.
"Obviously we're very happy that [the project] has found its footing once again," Don Bourgeois, chair of the board and president of Createscape Waterloo Region, told CBC News.
"Our purpose is to help create public art that has that emotional attachment, but also gets people... to have discussion about the future of Canada, the history of Canada, of art and what art is about."
The four new statues depict Sir John Abbott, Sir John Thompson, Sir Mackenzie Bowell and Sir Charles Tupper. They join statues of Sir John A. Macdonald, Kim Campbell, Sir Robert Borden, William Lyon Mackenzie King and Lester B. Pearson.

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