{"id":545161,"date":"2026-03-18T19:44:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-18T19:44:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/545161\/"},"modified":"2026-03-18T19:44:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-18T19:44:11","slug":"queens-park-statues-to-be-protected-against-vandalism-ahead-of-next-weeks-protests","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/545161\/","title":{"rendered":"Queen&#8217;s Park statues to be protected against vandalism ahead of next week&#8217;s protests"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Ford government says it will wrap eight statues on the front lawn of Queen\u2019s Park to prevent them from further vandalism ahead of expected protests next week.<\/p>\n<p>The move is in reaction to <a href=\"https:\/\/toronto.citynews.ca\/2026\/03\/04\/students-protest-cuts-to-amount-of-osap-grants-they-can-receive\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">student-led protests earlier this month<\/a> against planned changes to the Ontario Student Assistance Program, which saw a statue of George Brown defaced with slogans and an obscenity against Premier Doug Ford. Two people were arrested in connection with that incident, and officials estimated the damage to the statue at more than $5,000.<\/p>\n<p>Ford says he welcomes protesters to the legislature but cautioned against vandalizing the statues.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnyone who wants to protest, you come to Queen\u2019s Park, do cartwheels, jump up and down, whatever you want to do \u2013 do not vandalize,\u201d he said during an unrelated announcement Wednesday morning. \u201cDo not vandalize those statues, they\u2019re historic, and if you do, you\u2019ll get charged.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>House Speaker Donna Skelly says the statues will be wrapped ahead of MPPs\u2019 return to the legislature on March 23.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are putting actions in place to prevent further damage and to also protect people who are not only protesting but who also want to attend Queen\u2019s Park on that day,\u201d Skelly tells CityNews. \u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBe passionate, but please, play by the rules, don\u2019t break the law, and you\u2019re welcome back anytime.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Officials say the wrapping on the statues is not permanent and will eventually be removed.<\/p>\n<p>Mark McAllister and Richard Southern contributed to this report<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Ford government says it will wrap eight statues on the front lawn of Queen\u2019s Park to prevent&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":545162,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194295],"tags":[49,48,20739],"class_list":["post-545161","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ottawa","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-ottawa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545161","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=545161"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545161\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/545162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=545161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=545161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=545161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}