New Ontario Veterans' Memorial
On Sunday September 17th a new memorial dedicated to Canada's veterans will be erected in Toronto:
Politically, the new memorial was first supported by former premier Ernie Eves, but Dalton McGuinty has picked up where his rival left off and has seen the work through to its completion. I am glad that some issues, especially the memory of our courageous veterans, transcend petty partisan politics.
Finally, I have a request to make: Could someone from the Toronto area try to attend the ceremony and snap some pictures? I would love to see shots of the unveiling, and I'm almost never satisfied with the photographs the media publishes for events such as this. Thank you.
Designed by Charlottetown-born artist Allan Harding MacKay and Vancouver-based landscape architects Phillips Farevaag Smallenberg after a national competition, the memorial faintly echoes Maya Lin's iconic 1982 Vietnam Veterans War Memorial in Washington, D.C.
Carefully placed in what Rohmer delights in calling "a copse of trees," it consists of 1.4-metre-wide etchings of Canadian military scenes mounted on a 30-metre-long granite wall gently sloped from 1.8 metres at its most narrow point to 2.7 metres in the middle.
"This was a totally original approach and it's educational," said the general, taking a break this week to show off the site that's still under construction.
"Anybody who comes along can take a look at the images and take something away. You don't just have to look at words or names or anything of the kind," he said, noting it will be inscribed with brief text from military historian Jack Granatstein and prose from Ontario novelist Jane Urquhart, author of The Stonecarvers.
Politically, the new memorial was first supported by former premier Ernie Eves, but Dalton McGuinty has picked up where his rival left off and has seen the work through to its completion. I am glad that some issues, especially the memory of our courageous veterans, transcend petty partisan politics.
Finally, I have a request to make: Could someone from the Toronto area try to attend the ceremony and snap some pictures? I would love to see shots of the unveiling, and I'm almost never satisfied with the photographs the media publishes for events such as this. Thank you.
posted by Andrew at 7:44 p.m.
1 Comments:
I'll do what I can to be on-scene with a camera.
From what I understand a military parade will depart Fort York and HMCS York, proceed along Front to University, then move north along University to the Legislature. Veterans will join the column at University and College, taking pride of place in the vanguard as it moves past the reviewing stand. It's expected to be at the Legislature by 1400 EDT.
The memorial itself is in the NW quadrant of Queen's Park. I'm not sure where the reviewing stand will be, but that's probably where I will try and position myself until the formal unveiling ceremony later.
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