Prime Ministers Path becomes community-led project

Wilmot Township has transferred the future of Prime Ministers Path to Createscape Waterloo Region, moving the long-disputed Baden statue project out of direct municipal control. (kitchener.citynews.ca) Council’s Monday decision gives the charitable group a 20-year licence to use the grounds outside Castle Kilbride for the project’s new version. (kitchener.citynews.ca) Wilmot will still pay one last bill: $78,000 to reinstall the statues. The township said no further public funding will go to the project after that. (kitchener.citynews.ca) (wilmot.ca) The statues of former Canadian prime ministers were commissioned in 2013 by a Kitchener resident as a Canada 150-era project and installed in Wilmot in 2016. Critics objected from the start to celebrating leaders tied to colonialism, racism and other harms. (kitchener.citynews.ca) (wilmot.ca) The dispute escalated in 2020, when the John A. Macdonald statue was removed after strong public backlash. In 2021, council ended the project and moved the remaining four statues into storage. (kitchener.citynews.ca) (wilmot.ca) That changed after a new public process began in 2024. Wilmot created a working group, collected feedback through surveys, open houses, tea circles and Indigenous consultation, and released recommendations in April 2025. (wilmot.ca 1) (wilmot.ca 2) Council then voted unanimously on July 28, 2025 to bring the statues back, relocate Macdonald to a less prominent part of the park, and create a volunteer-led body to oversee interpretation. (wilmot.ca 1) (wilmot.ca 2) That committee was later formed with nine members and three advisers, including sculptor Ruth Abernethy and historian J.D.M. Stewart. Wilmot said the group’s job was to guide reinstallation and develop historically grounded educational material. (wilmot.ca) The township had also said future funding should come from donations, partnerships or grants rather than municipal programming budgets. By November 2025, Wilmot said close to $10,000 had been donated. (wilmot.ca) (wilmot.ca) The new arrangement keeps the statues in public view at Baden while ending the township’s direct stewardship role. After more than a decade of arguments over what the site should commemorate, Wilmot has settled on a community-run model with one final municipal payment. (kitchener.citynews.ca)