Riel statue to be moved

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A controversial 25 year-old semi-abstract statue of Metis leader Louis Riel will be removed from the grounds of the Manitoba Legislature Building, according to Manitoba Metis Federation president Billyjo DeLaRonde.

It will be replaced with a "more proper, statesmanlike" representation of the hero of the rebellion of the late 19th century.

DeLaRonde says that having that statue moved to a college in the Winnipeg suburb of St. Boniface was relatively easy, but that having it replaced was considerably more difficult.

"Here, the replacement has taken a good deal of negotiation involving the federation and the government."

The centre of the controversy is a symbolic representation of Riel that is clearly out of step with today's view of the Metis leader. The statue shows a naked Louis Riel; his nakedness is said to represent his powerlessness. The figure has a twisted body; the deformed figure represents Riel's oft-reported but historically unproven insanity. The man is surrounded or enclosed by cylinders; these represent the jail cells and asylums in which he was held.

The statue was commissioner by John Allard, a Metis MLA for Rupert's Land, who crossed the floor in the late 1960s from the opposition Liberal to sit with the governing NDP.

Allard brought the removal of the statue to national prominence when he chained himself to the piece to effect its preservation. His detractors say that he cannot come to terms with the widespread contempt in which it is held.

Allard, who was joined in his protest by the statue's sculptor Marcien LeMay and two other protesters, was not present when police moved in at 5 a.m. July 27 and moved the demonstrators.

DeLaRonde and other Metis leaders have disliked the statue for years, yet its removal is only a step in the rehabilitation of Louis Riel.. The Metis federation's coup was the replacement statue, which will demonstrate Riel's positive contributions to Canada.

"Louis Riel is a father of confederation," says DeLaRonde. "He was a good, young and vibrant leader of the Metis people. Without him, there might not have been a Canadian West to speak of."

Yet the statues and history books have painted an ambiguous picture of Riel, at best.

"Look at Mount Rushmore, the faces of the men portrayed there," says DeLaRonde, "or at the statues of the other fathers of federation." They show men who built their countries, he says, not some kind of cartoon figures or cult leaders.

Getting rid of the offending statuary will be the end of a long battle. In 1970, the late Angus Spence, then-president of the Manitoba Metis Federation, called the statue an "incongruous monstrosity."

According to DeLaRonde, the attitudes to Riel have come a long way since the late 60s.

"It has been a process of evolution," he says, "from the days when that statue could be erected. Metis people today believe (the statue) to have been a slap in the face of the memory and legacy of Louis Riel."