Canada Day protest over residential schools sees monarch statues toppled in Winnipeg

WINNIPEG — Statues of two queens on the grounds of the Manitoba legislature were toppled during a rally over the deaths of Indigenous children at residential schools.

The statues of Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth were tied with ropes and brought down by a crowd that gathered on Canada Day.

The statue of Queen Victoria was covered in red paint, and the base of the statue had red handprints on it.

On the steps behind the statue were hundreds of tiny shoes, put in place to recognize Indigenous children who went to residential schools.

Many special events normally associated with Canada Day were either cancelled or scaled back, after hundreds of unmarked graves were found at former residential school sites in British Columbia and Saskatchewan.

In St. John's, N.L., two prominent buildings and a statue dedicated to the local police force were vandalized with bright red paint.

The Canadian Press