Tory Redux

Tag: CanadaRemembers

  • The Torch Is Ours Now

    They’re disappearing

    Canada’s firsthand witnesses to one of the greatest conflicts that shaped the world are slowly passing away. Our remaining veterans of the Second World War and the Korean War are down to just above 4,000. Every year, that number gets smaller. Every year, fewer people remain who can tell us, in their own words, what it cost.

    One man’s voice

    Bill Wilson was one of them. The Manitoba-born sailor served aboard HMCS Ottawa and took part in the D-Day landings. He died this year at 101. Looking back on that day, he didn’t hesitate:

    “I think D-Day was the best day of the war for the world. We did free all of Europe, and Canada was there. For a little nation like ours, it still amazes me. Would I do it again? In spades.

    What they never got

    Generations of young men never came home. They never fell in love, started families or had the chance to grow old.

    From Vimy Ridge to Juno Beach to Kandahar, our history is one of service and sacrifice.

    It wasn’t just Canadians who felt this

    One of Scotland’s last surviving D-Day veterans, who died this year at 100, put it plainly:

    “I’ve had another 82 years. I came home, fell in love, got married, had children, and watched my family grow. Thousands of young men never had the opportunity to experience any of those things, and that is tragic.”

    He continued: “I will never forget the men who didn’t come home. All I ask is that, when we are no longer here to tell you ourselves, you don’t forget them either.”

    We’re forgetting

    Fewer and fewer people take the small amount of time each year to wear a poppy in recognition of that sacrifice. It’s become a worrying trend.

    Another reason remembrance is losing its personal connection is that fewer people have a veteran or someone who served in a conflict in their lives. The further we get from the firsthand experience of war and its cost, the easier it becomes for remembrance to feel like an obligation rather than something that genuinely moves us.

    Why it’s happening

    Alongside the decline in poppy-wearing, there’s a deeper problem: younger generations simply don’t know enough about their own history.

    It isn’t helped by the fact that most students take only one mandatory history course before graduating high school. History is important, but it has to be reinforced every year, with practical examples, not left to a single class.

    Remembrance Day ceremonies need to be meaningful opportunities for students to understand our history and honour those who served, not just another obligation to sit through.

    Our turn

    Now it’s our turn to hold the torch high.

    John McCrae captured it in In Flanders Fields: the dead speak to us still — short days ago, they lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow. Now they ask only that we remember.

    Lest we forget.

  • Vimy Ridge: The Defining Moment When Canada Became a Nation

    Vimy Ridge: The Defining Moment When Canada Became a Nation

    ghost at Vimy

    At first glance, Vimy Ridge was a brutal assault on a German-held escarpment in northern France, with mud, machine guns, and heavy sacrifice. But for Canada, it was far more: the crucible where our young dominion forged a proud national identity we still cherish today.

    I look to history because it still has something to teach us. Vimy Ridge wasn’t just another battle. It was the moment Canadians from every corner of the country stood together, showed real grit, and proved we could achieve something extraordinary through personal responsibility, courage, and collective effort.

    A Triumph of Unified Canadian Identity

    For the first time, all four divisions of the Canadian Corps fought as one cohesive force under Canadian planning and command. Regiments from coast to coast — Ontario farms, Prairie homesteads, British Columbia logging camps, and Maritime ports — advanced shoulder to shoulder.

    Veterans Affairs Canada rightly calls it “a distinctly Canadian triumph” that helped create “a new and stronger sense of national identity in our country.” English Canadians, French Canadians, recent immigrants, and Indigenous soldiers bled together on that ridge. The Vimy Foundation captures the spirit perfectly with Ernest Renan’s words: “Nations are made by doing great things together.”

    Our troops did exactly that. They rehearsed meticulously and captured an objective that French and British forces had failed to take. That success planted the seed of a shared Canadian pride that transcends regional lines, a pride built on freedom, determination, and getting the job done.

    Acknowledging the Challenges Without Diminishing the Achievement

    Some historians push back. The Global News article questions if Vimy was truly a “nation-building moment,” with experts claiming the idea “just doesn’t hold water historically.” They highlight the terrible cost — 3,598 Canadians killed and over 7,000 wounded in four days — and how those losses fueled the Conscription Crisis that divided the country, especially in Quebec.

    Active History says celebrating unity “obscures the complicated political context,” while Valour Canada notes that one battle can’t erase more than three hundred years of our history. The UNB Vimy Ridge legacy page rightly reminds us of the exceptionally high cost in Canadian lives.

    These facts deserve straight talk — war is hell, and conscription exposed real fault lines. But let’s apply some common sense here. The divisions that followed weren’t proof that Vimy failed to unite us. They were the growing pains of a young nation finding its strength. Despite the political storm, Canada held together. The shared experience and pride from fighting successfully as one distinct force created a resilient identity that endured.

    I’m proud our country didn’t fracture. The courage shown on that ridge carried us forward.

    The Enduring Legacy of Sacrifice

    Vimy earned Canada genuine respect on the world stage and helped secure our own voice at the Paris Peace Conference — a clear step toward greater autonomy. Outlets like TimminsToday highlight it as a galvanizing moment of “Canadian determination and grit.”

    This is our history, and it’s one worth celebrating without apology. Those men fought with ingenuity, resilience, and a willingness to sacrifice for something greater than themselves. They gave us one of our first powerful symbols of what free Canadians can accomplish when we pull together the values of personal responsibility and freedom that still matter today.

    https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/ba/Vimy_Memorial_%28September_2010%29_14.JPG

    From Dominion to Nation

    Vimy Ridge stands as a defining turning point. It wasn’t the sole birthplace of Canada, but it marked the moment our nation came of age moving from loyal dominion to a confident country with its own proud character forged in fire and resolve.

    Today, as we face our own challenges of unity, affordability, and purpose, Vimy reminds us of our true potential. It calls us back to the common-sense values that built this land: courage, hard work, personal responsibility, and the strength that comes from doing great things together.

    The legacy of Vimy lives not only at the majestic memorial on the ridge, but in the story we Canadians continue to tell about ourselves a diverse, determined people who rose to the occasion and proved what we are made of.

    I am proud of that heritage

    lest we forget.

  • Vimy Ridge Day

    Today is the 108th anniversary of the Battle of Vimy Ridge. Four Canadian divisions fought together for the first time, and this event helped shape a nation. About 3,600 soldiers lost their lives, and we remember them—lest we forget.

    “At 5:30 am, that call of duty and honour propelled the first 15,000 of their ranks to rise from the trenches and storm the ridge. Joined by 97,000 of their brothers over four days, they fought against a torrent of enemy fire, steadily advancing eastward to push the German line as far back as 5km.  

    “Where our progenitor nations had failed, a Canada united in common cause had triumphed, at great cost. A day that dwarfed those which came before in magnitude of human bravery also surpasses those which have come after in sacrifice. 

    “In the love we bore for them, we erected our largest war memorial atop the ridge secured by the 3,598 Canadians who fell. Its grandeur humbling the living to our nation’s sons, lying in the fields from Flanders to Picardy, etched into its stone, ‘their name liveth for evermore.’”

    “Lest we forget.”