The CANstruction display of the Inclusivity Pride Flag was targeted by vandals Thursday.
(Inclusivity Pride Flag CANstruction display March 27, 2022. Blackburn News Media photo by Stephanie Chaves.)
The structure, built by Diversity Ed Safer Spaces Canada, was intentionally knocked down at Lambton Mall according to Co-Founder Crystal Fach.
"We received a phone call just after 6 p.m. from one of our community members who had been walking through the mall and saw the display destroyed," said Fach. "They had walked by originally and it was up and when they walked back it was down."
She said they've decided to leave the destroyed structure as is.
"People need to see this is what hate looks like, because it is impactful," she said. "But then I also wanted to build something right behind it that says this is what love looks like, and show that our community is going to reach out and that we're not going to go away and that we do have love in our community."
She said the community support following the incident has been tremendous, and residents, businesses and other groups have donated more cans and time to help build a new display.
"As horrible as that was, we had so many people reach out and send us messages," she said. "Whether it was on our social media, they e-mailed us, we had people calling, people are showing up to help us. So, as hard as that was for us yesterday, especially on Transgender Visibility Day, we got to see some really beautiful humans come out and send us hope and love."
Fach said they have renamed the destroyed display "Hate Crime", while the new display will symbolize "What Love Builds".
Inn of the Good Shepherd Executive Director Myles Vanni said this is the first time in the event's nine years that one of the CANstruction displays was intentionally destroyed.
"CANstruction is about bringing community together and caring and compassion for others, and this act, this very violent act, is just totally ignorant of that fact of caring and compassion," said Vanni.
Lambton Mall General Manager Alexandra Kohut said a group of teens are responsible, and what happened was terrible.
"We've never condoned this type of behaviour in our shopping centre and we actually do consider ourselves a hub for our community," said Kohut. "We have been recently dealing with a big influx of mischievous groups of teens throughout the mall, so it has been quite difficult over the last couple of months for a lot of our stores and employees. We feel awful that the Diversity Ed group was affected by this."
Kohut said Lambton Mall is helping Sarnia police with its investigation of the incident.