On Thursday, police have shocked a man by using a stun gun after a crowd toppled down a statue of Queen Victoria on the Manitoba Legislature grounds. Although there are not enough details yet, it is suspected that the man was arrested because he was angry at the protesters who brought down the statue.
The protesters brought down the statue and left it covered in red painted handprints. There was a sign also, saying “We were children once. Bring them home”.
A large number of protesters were dressed in orange in memory of Indigenous children sent to residential schools. They surrounded the statue, wrapped it in ropes and pulled it off its base.
Belinda Vandenbroeck, a residential school survivor, has talked to the press:
“This queen is the one that gave our land away just like that to her merry gentleman — her fur traders. So I really have no place for her in my heart. I never did. She means nothing to me except that her policies and her colonialism is what is dictating us right to this minute as you and I speak.”
Also, the protesters pulled down a smaller statue of Queen Elizabeth II.
In June 2020, the Queen Victoria monument was defaced as well. The statue was vandalized during the anti-racism protests.
