The City of Ottawa has cut ties with an employee who is accused of vandalizing the National Holocaust Monument with paint, Mayor Mark Sutcliffe confirmed Sunday.
Ottawa police announced Saturday that a 46-year-old man had been charged with several offences, including mischief to a war memorial, mischief exceeding $5,000 and harassment by threatening conduct.
The words FEED ME were splashed in red paint across the monument on June 9.
On Saturday evening, Sutcliffe took to social media to say he was “very disturbed” to learn the accused was a city employee on leave, adding he’d asked city officials to take “appropriate action.”
On Sunday, Sutcliffe provided an update saying the man was “no longer employed by the City of Ottawa.”
The vandalism has drawn condemnation from across the political spectrum, including from Prime Minister Mark Carney, who said he was “appalled” someone would target a space for mourning and remembrance.
The monument, formally titled Landscape of Loss, Memory and Survival, was inaugurated in 2017 to honour the more than 6 million Jews and others murdered in the Holocaust.
The Ottawa Police Service said the investigation by its hate and bias crime unit is ongoing.
– with files from The Canadian Press