Statue of Egerton Ryerson pulled down in downtown Toronto
Ryerson #Ryerson
A statue of Egerton Ryerson at Ryerson University has been pulled down, according to several images posted online Sunday.
A video posted on social media Sunday shows the statue, which has long been a flash point of controversy over the educator’s influential role in designing Canada’s residential school system, being pulled down with a rope.
“A couple decades too late, but the Egerton Ryerson statue has been desecrated and toppled over,” wrote Al MacMillan, who posted the video on Twitter.
Read more: Calls grow to rename Ryerson institutions across Ontario
Global News has not confirmed yet who pulled the statue down.
The statue and the university’s name have been the subject of criticism for several years amid calls for Canada to reconcile history of colonialism and treatment of Indigenous people.
Spray-painted words and paint have been splashed across the statue over the last week following the discovery of the bodies of 215 children in a former residential school in Kamloops, B.C.
Several students, professors and university groups have already swapped their references to the university from Ryerson to “X University.” Most recently, the university’s journalism school announced it would rename two of its publications.
Ryerson University did not immediately respond to Global News’ request for comment on the statue’s removal.
More to come…