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VIMY RIDGE, France – The iconic monument to Vimy Ridge recalled the sacrifice of Canadians during the war, as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made another visit to the memorial one day before the centennial of the end of the First World War.
Strolling his hands at the engraved names of Canadian soldiers who died at war and walking in the graves – some with names, others simply identified as "a soldier of the great war" – Trudeau and his Minister of Veterans Affairs have shaking hands with veterans and thanking them for their services. .
The monument became a symbol of Canada's experience during the "War to End All Wars", during which approximately 650,000 Canadians and Newfoundlanders served – many considered remarkable considering of the country 's population, which was about eight million.
The Prime Minister went to Vimy Ridge last year to mark the centenary of the battle.
On Sunday, more than 60 world leaders will gather in Paris to mark the 100th anniversary of the end of the First World War. The arrest of Trudeau at Vimy is therefore symbolic. Many of them gathered Saturday night in Paris, walking on a red carpet and stopping for the photographers before having dinner inside the Orsay museum.
Roland Paris, Trudeau's former foreign affairs advisor, said the combination of events over the weekend gives the prime minister the symbol of his continued support for public pressure for governments not to break international alliances.
Trudeau and other leaders will meet on Sunday alongside French President Emmanuel Macron during the Armistice commemorations in Paris. Later in the day, Macron will hold a peace forum. The French government hopes to attract an annual draw for civil society and political leaders.
"Going to Vimy and celebrating Armistice Day (…) offers the Prime Minister the opportunity to highlight why Canadians have sacrificed in the past and the importance of maintaining an international order based on rules, "said Paris.
Approximately 66,000 Canadian soldiers died during the First World War, between 1914 and 1918, and 172,000 were injured. People buried in Vimy and elsewhere believed that defending Canadian values "was worth the sacrifice," said Veterans Affairs Minister Seamus O. Regan.
"We have to remember the lesson of these conflicts: this freedom is not free.It's not easy.In fact, it's a tough fight," said O & # 39; Regan .
"But remember those lessons, it's remembering those who fought and who still fight them."
Matthew Barrett, an expert in Canadian military history from Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, learned a lesson from the First World War on regional disputes.
This fear of being entangled in a conflict fueled the discomfort felt by US President Donald Trump vis-à-vis military alliances such as NATO, prompting Trudeau to talk about keeping the military. alliances.
Trump was clearly not among the leaders to walk on the red carpet for the evening gala dinner in Paris. Earlier in the day, he had been criticized for canceling a visit to the American cemetery of Aisne-Marne, outside the French capital, because of bad weather.
Much of the 2,289 soldiers buried in the cemetery died in 1918, the last year of the war.
Some 11,000 names of Canadians who died in France are inscribed on the Vimy Memorial, marking the ridge taken by Canadian soldiers kidnapped from the Germans in April 1917.
Fighting continued in Europe for a year before the armistice of November 11, 1918.
"Canadians remember who you are, what you represent and the story you have defined, of a story for which you have bled and who has fought. "A story based on your sacrifice." Thank you, "Trudeau told a group of veterans during a keynote address at one of the cemeteries where Canadians are buried.
Clouds covered the site – the rain stopped until service at the monument was completed – and a cold, wet wind swept through the area, rustling slightly the leaves of a young tree, grown in Canada and descending of oaks once grown here.
Following the Battle of Vimy, a Canadian soldier, Lieutenant Leslie Miller, plucked a handful of acorns from a fallen oak tree and sent them home to Toronto, where they grew up.
A group of volunteers worked to obtain 100 young trees for the four-acre park that coincides with the centennial of the end of the First World War. The trees will grow inside four concentric rings, each representing one of the four Canadian divisions that fought at Vimy.
Trudeau and O. Regan traveled the newly opened memorial park.
– Follow @jpress on Twitter.
© Copyright Times Colonist
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