Give a Vimy for Vimy:’ Fundraising campaign highlights battlefield image on $20 bill
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Canadians have become used to calling their dollars loonies and $2 coins toonies.
But a national history foundation that promotes remembrance of the 1917 Battle of Vimy Ridge — the landmark First World War victory widely viewed as a major milestone for Canadian nationhood — is launching a centennial campaign to convince the country to adopt the nickname “Vimy” for the new polymer $20 bills, which feature an image of the towering Vimy Ridge battlefield memorial in France.
Then, as part of the Montreal-based Vimy Foundation’s bid to construct a $10-million education centre near the monument, Canadians will be urged to “Give a Vimy for Vimy” in a grassroots fundraising campaign aimed at augmenting corporate donations and a $5-million federal commitment made earlier this year in support of the building project A host of well-known Canadians, including former Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney, comedian Rick Mercer, actor Paul Gross and hockey commentator Don Cherry, has been enlisted to back the campaign. And Veterans Affairs Minister Julian Fantino is expected to help launch the initiative on Tuesday at the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa, just days ahead of the annual Remembrance Day ceremony at the nearby National War Memorial.
The Canadian-led victory in the Battle of Vimy Ridge, while only a modest military achievement within the broad context of the First World War, has come to represent a coming-of-age experience for Canada as an independent nation.
It was the first battle in which various Canadian military units came together as a cohesive fighting force. And despite heavy casualties during the four-day engagement from April 9-12 — more than 3,500 killed and 7,000 wounded — the Canadians overcame stiff German resistance and finally took command of the strategic height of land.
“In the months following Vimy,” said Vimy Foundation campaign director Jeremy Diamond, “our forces gained such a reputation that their success and sacrifice resulted in Canada earning signing rights for the Treaty of Versailles and control over its foreign affairs, an important step toward full nationhood and independence.”
It was, he added, “a seminal moment in our history, a victory — and one that helped give us our own voice around the world. We don’t celebrate our successes and our history in Canada nearly as much as we should or as well as those from other countries, such as the United States and Great Britain.”
The Vimy Foundation successfully lobbied to have the historic battle recognized when the plasticized $20 bill was being developed by the Bank of Canada. The banknote, released last November, shows the famous twin pillars of the Vimy memorial designed by sculptor Walter Allward and unveiled in July 1936 by King Edward VIII — one of the highlights of the new monarch’s brief reign before he abdicated later that year to marry American divorcee Wallis Simpson.
In 2010, in a sign of the enduring resonance of Vimy Ridge in Canadian historical consciousness, the Canadian War Museum paid nearly $20,000 at a London auction — four times the expected price — to acquire a commemorative medal worn by Edward VIII when he presided over the monument’s unveiling.
The massive cenotaph, formally known as the Canadian National Vimy Memorial, rises on a 100-hectare piece of land that was officially transferred to Canada’s control by the French government in 1922, and which is one of only two National Historic Sites located outside of Canada.
The site commemorates not only the 1917 battle but also the 11,285 Canadian soldiers killed in France during the First World War who have no known resting place.
In May, at a Quebec City ceremony in which the federal government announced its $5-million pledge for the new visitors’ centre, Christopher Sweeney, chair of the Vimy Foundation’s centennial committee, said the new building “will be the highlight of national and international celebrations of what we, as Canadians, accomplished together at Vimy almost 100 years ago.”
The foundation, among other activities, organizes regular “pilgrimages” by Canadian students to the Vimy Ridge memorial.
The 100th anniversary of the battle in April 2017 will be followed just a few months later by the 150th anniversary of Confederation in July 2017. The two events are at the centre of the federal Conservative government’s ambitious — and, to some, controversial — mission to stoke citizens’ patriotic passions and their knowledge of Canada’s military heritage.
The proposed official opening of the Vimy Education Centre on April 9, 2017 — 100 years to the day after the battle began — would set the stage for a blowout Canada Day celebration on July 1 that’s expected to be the biggest flag-fest since the national centennial celebrations in 1967.
The year 2017, said Diamond, “will be a time where, while we recognize some events in our history are problematic, it should be acceptable, even encouraged, to celebrate the events and accomplishments that make us unique.”