Address by Prime Minister Paul Martin to the farewell dinner of V-E Day 60th Anniversary celebrations

Good evening.

I’ve been told to keep my remarks brief, because there’s dancing planned. Although if you see me dance, you’ll wish I’d talked forever.

I know I speak for my colleagues in Parliament and the leaders of the other parties when I say it is a great privilege and indeed a great honour to be with you tonight, as many of you prepare to end your stay here in the Netherlands and return to Canada.

When you get home, you’ll find that an extraordinary number of Canadians have been with you here in spirit this past week – watching the ceremonies on television, even in the early morning hours, and reading the countless newspaper articles about the anniversary of V-E Day – and about the men and women whose efforts and whose sacrifices ensured that freedom was reborn on the European continent.

I spent yesterday with many veterans and soldiers in Ottawa at the opening of the new Canadian War Museum. I recommend you visit it on your next trip to Ottawa. It is a shrine to all those who wore the uniform and fought for Canada, and for what our country stands for. You will be very proud.

Thousands of ordinary Canadians came out for the museum opening, too. United in their reverence and their gratitude for those who serve, and those who have served, our nation, they lined the parade route through the downtown streets, wearing poppies, waving flags.

As the veterans passed by, many on foot, some again riding atop of tanks, the applause was long and it was loud.

During the day, as people spoke of dedication, of lives lost in service to an ideal and a way of life, my thoughts turned to my visit here, to the liberation of the Netherlands, and to you.

For even as France was liberated, even as Belgium again knew freedom, the Netherlands remained under tyranny. Everyone knew it would be a tough job, perhaps the hardest on the western front. They called on the Canadians. And Canadians undertook it with ingenuity, and devotion, and with a deep pride of nationhood.

When I reflect on your courage, on your endurance, on your ability to press forward, day after day, through the mud, through the cold and the snow, fuelled by a cup of bad coffee and maybe a shot of rum, I am reminded of the words of the poet John McCrae, who wrote of a soldier’s sense of duty to the fallen – “We will onward till we win or fall, we will keep the faith for which they died.”

Here, on the fields and in the towns, street by street, door by door, liberty was won, and glory was won.


You, your buddies – you were the footsloggers. You made it happen. In the springtime of your lives, you took up arms, willingly, to free those living in fear and darkness, strangers to the ordinary joys of freedom. You left the comfort of your families so that other families might be kept whole.

There was a nobility to your perseverance -- for your bond was with people whose names you did not know, living in conditions and under an oppression you simply refused to let stand. You had the strength of resolve to muster courage in the thick of fear, to find hope when all hope seemed lost, to declare with each battle, with each day, with each step forward, that life is nothing without liberty.

Your achievements, the good you did, the triumphs you won – your valour has made them the birthright of every Canadian. You have done your duty; our duty to you is to nurture the memories of your exploits, to tend them, to make certain they endure and are remembered, that they are never forgotten.

Your road was hard, and it was long, but at its end there was peace.

The generations who followed will be forever grateful.