Saint-Henri surgeon calls for changes to Jacques Cartier monument's Indigenous effigies

Dr. Stanley Vollant, an Innu surgeon who lives across from the Jacques Cartier monument-fountain in Saint-Henri park, is calling on Montreal to remove the fountain's Indigenous face effigies and rewrite its historical plaque.

Vollant first noticed the effigies during the summer of 2020 when his five-year-old daughter pointed them out. "My daughter told me, 'hey daddy, what are those monsters that are spitting out water?'" he recalled. "And I took a look and it was Indigenous faces, very hideous Indigenous faces spitting out water."

The monument, completed in 1893, commemorates Jacques Cartier. One of four plaques reads: "He took possession of the entire country in the name of his master, the king, and called it New France." Vollant wants that language changed. "We never gave up our land. We never surrendered. We never had lost a fight for that land. So for us, it's an insult," he said.

Vollant is not asking for the fountain to be destroyed or removed — only for the gargoyles depicting Indigenous people to be replaced and the plaque rewritten respectfully. "I think as a group we can find something much better," he said.

Heritage Montreal acknowledged that the monument reflects an era when history was written and understood differently than it is today. The Sud-Ouest borough mayor's office said it has been in touch with Montreal's Commissioner for Indigenous Relations, Randy Legault Rankin, to "reflect on the matter and what can be done." The office said it is "looking for a way to contextualize the statue and to explain its colonial past" and plans to consult local organizations and citizens like Vollant.

"We have to maybe change the narrative and to do some change and that will be a compromise with Indigenous people and non-Indigenous people," Vollant said. "That's the process of reconciliation. It's working together."