Prime Ministers Path set for community-led return in Wilmot

The statues of former prime ministers will soon return to the grounds outside Castle Kilbride in Wilmot Township, this time with a community-driven approach.

The statues, including a statue of Canada’s first Prime Minister, John A. Macdonald, were commissioned by a Kitchener resident back in 2013 as part of a project to celebrate Canada’s 150th anniversary.

From the outset, the statues garnered negative attention due to the colonialism, racism, and systemic harm tied to the figures they depicted. The statues were eventually installed in Wilmot at Castle Kilbride in 2016.

In 2020, following an outpouring of responses from members of the public, the statue of John A. MacDonald was removed from the path and placed into storage. One year later, the council of the day decided to end the project entirely and move the remaining four statues into storage.

In 2025, council created a steering committee to help guide plans for the future of the path and to help transition the project into the hands of Createscape Waterloo Region .

After a council decision on Monday, the project has been transferred out of the hands of the township and into the hands of Createscape, with council establishing a 20-year license for the charitable organization to use the grounds of the Prime Ministers Path for the establishment and maintenance of the new version of the project.

The new vision for the project is set to include a broader community perspective and should include space for education on the difficult history of those prime ministers, in addition to their accomplishments.

The township will incur a final cost for the project, which is $78,000 to re-install the statues. No further public funding will be granted to the project.

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