On April 9, Canada will be commemorating the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Vimy Ridge, a significant and defining moment in our history.
The year 1917 marked the 50th anniversary of Confederation, and this year we are proudly celebrating the 150th.
It is a widely-held belief that Canada became a nation on that battlefield at Vimy Ridge in 1917. The reasons for this are captured beautifully in the concluding words of Joel Ralph, then a Grade 11 student from Lockerby Composite School in Sudbury, from his essay written in 1999:
“....the attack proved the Canadians to be the best army in the world, and they accordingly would form the iron tip of the spearhead that would end the war in 1918. ...The troops came from Nova Scotia to Montreal, Ottawa to Winnipeg, Regina to Vancouver, even the North West and everywhere else in between...That morning when they set out to seize Vimy Ridge they were Commonwealth soldiers, but when they reached the summit they were Canadians.”
We now pause each April 9 to remember these valiant soldiers and the birth of our nationhood.
Since 2003, Vimy Ridge Day has been marked by the lowering of the Peace Tower flag to halfmast, this as a result of the passage of a private member’s bill in the House of Commons which called for the establishment of a National Day of Remembrance of the Battle of Vimy Ridge. The bill was introduced by Member of Parliament for Algoma-Manitoulin-Kapuskasing Brent St. Denis and sponsored in the Senate by the parliamentarian representing Northern Ontario, Marie-P. Charette-Poulin.
There is yet another Northern Ontario connection, and we would like to acknowledge Robert E. Manuel of Elliott Lake, whose millennium project provided the inspiration for the private member’s bill. The idea quickly found enthusiasm across a broad spectrum in Canada, including the National Council of Veteran
Associations in Canada, the Royal Canadian Legion and parliamentarians of all stripes.
And so, let us take this opportunity to pay tribute to the families of those courageous Canadians who fought at Vimy Ridge 100 years ago.
Marie-P. Charette-Poulin, Liberal Parliamentarian in the Senate from 1995 to 2015
Brent St. Denis, Liberal Parliamentarian in the House of Commons from 1993 to 2008