In the early 2000s, Canadian poet Dennis Lee and poet advocate Richard Griffin led a campaign to erect a statue of Al Purdy, another Canadian poet, on the grounds of Queen's Park. The campaign specifically insisted that the statue should be located at Queen's Park, in order to demonstrate the significance of poetry and the arts in Canada's cultural life. The statue was eventually built and unveiled in 2008, making it the first statue at Queen's Park that commemorates an individual that was not a political figure or monarch.