Alma — Halifax council recently voted to remove the statue in South End Halifax of Edward Cornwallis because of its undeniable connection with racism.
“Although Cornwallis founded Halifax back in 1749, it’s widely known that he was a racist arse who shouldn’t be celebrated,” said one HRM staffer who voted in favour of the statue’s removal. “If the protest scheduled for Sunday went ahead it would have been torn down anyway, so we might as well rip off the band-aid.”
Halifax is celebrating the statue’s demise — and strangely, so is Alma, N.B. The tiny seaside village council voted unanimously to buy the old Cornwallis statue from Halifax for the price of $1 (half of Alma’s yearly budget), and erect it next to that sticky-bun shop on Main Street. Molly Kool, born in Alma, was North America’s first registered female ship master.
“If you look closely you’ll notice Cornwallis and Kool had the exact same hairstyle. So we’re simply re-purposing a controversial statue into one we can all be happy with…I honestly don’t think anyone will know the difference,” explained Alma Mayor Kirstin Herta Shortt. “We can always have someone add some colour to his…I mean ‘her’ cheeks or lips or paint on some eyebrows in case there’s any question as to the statue’s gender.
“Kool is a feminist icon, a pioneer for women. Yes, we do already have one monument celebrating her here in town, but I think it would be pretty ‘Kool’ to have two,” she added lamely.
Halifax Mayor Michael Savage said the city offered to just give the statue to Alma, but the prideful village insisted on forking over their dollar.
“But really, we would have paid them to take it,” said Savage with a shrug. “We just want it outta here already.”