Being better than our past.

Asking to take down the statue is not the same as burying our past or hiding our ancestors transgressions. We must learn to be and do better than those who came before us. To do that we must study our history to learn what was good and right, but also where those that came before made mistakes.

Moving the John A. MacDonald statue from a park downtown does not indicate that we are denying our past. It shows that we've seen the mistakes made and are willing to accept them and acknowledge that we are capable of being better. There is no reason to have a daily reminder to a large group of our citizens of abuses endured by their ancestors.

We cannot ignore the fact that we have fought for the freedom of all who live in this country and so we must strive to do better for everyone. Moving the statue to a museum alongside other artifacts of our history is the most appropriate place for this monument. There needs to be context given to the statue while our children learn about the history that it represents, just like artifacts of other genocidal leaders. We have a responsibility to all who will be here after us, that we preserve and appropriately give context to the artifacts of our past. Context is what will help them learn to be and do better.

There will come a time when our actions will be scrutinized as heavily as we are scrutinizing our ancestors. We cannot hope to be completely infallible, but as a society we must strive to acknowledge the places that we can be better now. The moving of the John A. MacDonald statue is one of those places. By giving the statue a home where it is not front and center in our lives but is somewhere we can learn within context and proper understanding is better for all of us. We can be better than our past.