Charlottetown's Sir John A Macdonald statue defaced again

Charlottetown's public works department has had to once again clean up a statue of Sir John A. Macdonald, Canada's first prime minister.

A city official said the downtown statue was splattered with yellow paint and what appears to be candy on either late Saturday night or Sunday last weekend.

It is the third incident involving the statue in the last year.

In September it was tipped over, damaging the head. In June it was splattered with red paint.

The presence of the statue has created controversy because of Macdonald's role in the creation of residential schools for Indigenous peoples.

The city pledged last summer to make changes to the statue, but in January it was still at odds with local Indigenous leaders about what changes should be made.

The city's public works department cleaned up the latest vandalism on Monday. It set up a protective barrier around it, to protect shop fronts and pedestrians during the cleaning, and sandblasted off the paint and debris.

The cleaning cost about $1,200. Cleaning off the red paint in June cost about $1,700.

Charlottetown police say they were informed about the most recent incident on Sunday and they are investigating.

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