CBC News spoke to Prof. David MacDonald, Department of Political Science, to ask for his thoughts on calls to remove statues of former prime minister John A. Macdonald, who had a poor record of working with Indigenous communities and contributing to the formation of residential schools.

MacDonald, who studies Indigenous politics in Canada and the residential school system, said he felt the recently erected statue of Macdonald in Baden should be removed because it doesn’t reflect any of Macdonald’s flaws.

“I am surprised that something this one-sided was actually created after the release of the [Truth and Reconciliation Commission] final reports in 2015,” MacDonald said. “The report highlighted Macdonald’s role in the residential schools and in the starvation of plains Indigenous peoples in no uncertain terms.”