Statement made on 27 September 2011 by Senator Roméo Dallaire
Hon. Roméo Antonius Dallaire:
Honourable senators, in 2008 we celebrated the 400th anniversary of Quebec City. The federal government was fully involved in those celebrations, and the citizens are grateful for that. The provincial and municipal levels of government also took part in an ambitious plan that truly changed the nature of some places in our community, even the St. Lawrence River.
In 2009, there was a celebration of the 250th anniversary of the Battle of the Plains of Abraham. No one except a few extremists went to the celebrations. No one recognized that hundreds, nearly thousands of French-Canadians, the Canadians of the time, were killed and injured in that battle, and that French and British soldiers were injured. Politicians did everything they could to avoid it. And I feel that was an incredible show of immaturity by our country, which was unable to recognize a fundamental part of our history. The British make some excellent films about their defeats. I would recommend them; they are very interesting.
I looked at certain parts of the Conservative Party platform during the last election, such as the impact of future commemorative events. Next year will mark the 200th anniversary of the War of 1812, which was a significant war.
I would like to read from the platform something that I noticed about 2017:
. . . in 2017, we will lead Canadians in the greatest birthday celebration in our nation's history — the 150th anniversary of Confederation.
Well, 2017 will also be the one-hundredth anniversary of when the youth of this nation went across the pond, fought, bled, died and won a stunning victory at Vimy Ridge, an event which turned this colony into a nation state. We won our spurs and were recognized as a nation state.
We will have the one-hundred-and-fiftieth anniversary of Canada and the one-hundredth anniversary of Vimy Ridge, and we will celebrate with a birthday party.
The government has now been in power for five years and will probably remain in power for another four years. The year 2017 is coming up. What is the government's plan? Will we have a party? Will we build centennial rinks across the country? What significant plan does the government have to bring this country together?
I will offer another option for the leader's consideration. What will we start after 2017? What is our new vision, our new prospect? Does the government have a significant plan for how to maximize these incredible milestones rather than having a bunch of birthday cakes and centennial parks across the country?
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