British Columbia Legislature 42nd Parliament, 3rd Session (2022) Statements, 6 Apr 2022

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From YouTube: APRIL 6 2022 Statements Michael de Jong

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The Legislative Assembly of British Columbia
3rd Session
42nd Parliament

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Member for abuser west thanks, mr speaker, more than a century, has passed since the canadian corps, fighting together for the first time stormed vimy ridge on a cold and snowy april morning in 1917, with the passing of the final, the passing of the final surviving veterans.

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These events, both heroic and tragic, have slipped from the memories of the living to become permanently and exclusively lodged in the pages of our history books, where they take on a more mythical and ethereal quality, but they were real.

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The ten thousand six hundred killed and wounded were real. The families were real, who mourned their death and ministered their wounds. If you visit the vimy memorial, as I think the member for siri guilford did on behalf of this house a few years ago, you'll feel feel very close to that reality.

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The signage that warns of unexploded ordnance that even today, claims casualties from the grazing sheep, the magnificence of the limestone memorial commemorating the over 11 000 canadians killed in france, with no known grave and the incredibly poignant and personal etchings that you will see if you descend beneath the pastoral fields into the tunnels and caves that protected soldiers, as they moved up to battle and then sheltered their broken bodies as casualty. Casualties mounted go into those tunnels and feel the presence of a wounded and frightened frightened eighteen-year-old from clinton or quanel carving.

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His initials into the chalk walls wondering if he'll ever see the sunlight of home again and this year, a century after the war to end all wars. Let us remember that not so far from vimy young children huddle in dirty squalid, basements and sellers terrified as the bombs and artillery fall around them, making them wonder if they will live to see the sunlight again.