The Minister of Canadian
Heritage announced on 13 August 2003 that a memorial honouring
fourteen valiant men and women, representing many others, who gave
outstanding wartime service to Canada during the last four centuries
was to be erected on Confederation Square in Ottawa. Such a memorial
had been proposed by the Valiants Foundation, which chose the
persons thus to be distinguished. The work was carried out by two
distinguished Canadian sculptors, John McEwen and Marlene Hilton
Moore, chosen by a national competition organized by the National
Capital Commission. On Sunday 5 November 2006 the Valiants Monument
was dedicated by Her Excellency the Governor General.
Canadians are not a
warlike people. Yet when the trumpets sound and the cannons roar, we
have, throughout our history, answered the call. The men and women
memorialized here stand as symbols for a nation shaped by conflict
and strengthened through sacrifice. It is war, as much as peace,
that unites us; for valour knows no bounds. They belong to us all,
these remarkable figures from our past; the Mohawk war chief who
fought to secure a tract of land for his dispossessed people; the
voltigeur who drove back the invaders and saved a city; the Loyalist
housewife who braved the swamps to sound an alarm; the failed real
estate salesman who became our greatest general. In this scattered
land, they provide the glue that holds us together. From the dark
scarps that overlook the Atlantic to the tattered islands in the
Pacific mists, these are the heroes who have helped give us shape
and purpose throughout four centuries. We have been called a cool
people, the product of a frosty environment, and it is true that we
do not indulge in the hot-blooded emotion that distinguishes those
from warmer climes. Overblown celebration is not our style, but we
know, deep in our hearts, that without the hard example provided by
the kind of Canadian remembered here, this country would not dare
call itself a nation.
The Late Pierre
Berton
