Nearly 1,750,000 men and women served for Canada during the First World War, the Second World War and the Korean War. Approximately 116,000 died as a result of their service.

Part of the mandate of Veterans Affairs Canada is to keep the memory of their achievements and sacrifices alive for all Canadians.

One of the ways the department fulfils this commemoration mandate is by organizing veterans' pilgrimages to former battlefield sites to mark milestone anniversaries of significant wartime events in which Canada figured prominently. The veterans who take part in these pilgrimages represent the units and services which participated in the original event, or provided support to them. The delegates are nominated by their former regiments and the other veterans' organizations. By returning them to their former battlefields and the surrounding war cemeteries, Canada pays tribute to the participating veterans, focuses public attention on the experiences of all veterans of that wartime event and pays its respects to those who were left behind. Canada had a policy of burying its war dead near where they fell so these pilgrimages are one way of demonstrating that neither time nor distance shall lessen our remembrance.

As the key to remembrance in the future lies with the youth of Canada, Veterans Affairs Canada invites youth representatives to participate in these pilgrimages and to share their experience with their peers.