Conseil scolaire catholique Nouvelon held a ceremony on May 8 marking Victory in Europe Day. This memorial gathering was scheduled to take place at the Memorial Park Cenotaph, but was moved to the CSC Nouvelon board office due to rain.
The event commemorates the end of fighting in 1945 on the European continent in the Second World War, and is important in many Allied countries, particularly France, which pays tribute on this day to the commitment of its military personnel who made the ultimate sacrifice for their country.
The ceremony was hled under the auspices of Chief Warrant Officer (retired) Christophe Baldacchino, Deputy Delegate General for Le Souvenir français for Ontario and Manitoba and Major (retired) Paul E. Henry, OStJ, CD, M.Ed., ECCM, MRHSC, Sudbury representative for Le Souvenir Français, who’s also the director of education with Nouvelon.
Among the guests at the event were Bertrand Pous, Consul General of France in Toronto; Federico Dudet-Bélanger, Honorary Consul of France in Sudbury; LCol (retired) André Levesque, OMM, KStJ, OOnt, CD, Ph.D., FRSA delegate general in Canada for Le Souvenir Français; Yann-Alexandre Girard, member of the Board of Directors of the Amicitia France-Canada Monument; Major (retired) Christophe Raisonnier, MStJ, CD, advisor to the delegate general in Canada for Le Souvenir Français; and Alis B. Kennedy, OOnt, CD, OMC, Canadian member of Section 1846 SNEMN.
This celebration of the duty to remember also welcomed a delegation of students from CSC Nouvelon, including Zackary Vaillancourt, student trustee at CSC Nouvelon and prime minister of École secondaire catholique l'Horizon (Val Caron); Alexie Blais, prime minister of École secondaire catholique Champlain (Chelmsford); Nadia Guillemette, prime minister of École secondaire du Sacré-Cœur (Sudbury); and Justine Toner, prime minister of Collège Notre-Dame (Sudbury).
CSC Nouvelon, which is commemorating for the very first time this Remembrance Day celebrated in France, plans to commemorate this occasion in the future.
