Never Forgotten National Memorial

Mother Bereft, the sculpture at the Vimy Memorial on which Mother Canada would have been based.

The Mother Canada monument, officially the Never Forgotten National Memorial, was a project planned for Cape Breton Highlands National Park as a memorial to Canadian soldiers who fought and died overseas. It was meant as a trans-Atlantic complement to the Canadian National Vimy Memorial in France.[1]

The $25 million project was to include a 24-metre statue of a bereft mother, her hands outstretched towards Europe and the Canada Bereft monument at the Vimy Memorial in France.[2] It would also have included an interpretive centre, a restaurant, and a souvenir shop among other things. It was to be funded through donations collected by the Never Forgotten National Memorial Foundation headed by Toronto businessman Tony Patrick Trigiani.[3] The project had been conceived by Trigiani after he visited a Canadian World War I cemetery in Europe.[2] To read about Trigiani's vision, visit http://www.friendsofourfallen.ca/

Opinion on the Monument was divided.[4] Supporting petitions from Cape Breton (New Waterford, Dominion, Glace Bay, Iona, Sydney, Ingonish), as well as from Hants County, Grand Prairie, Alberta, central Ontario and a Trans Canada petition were presented to Parliament by the local MP, the Honourable Mark Eyking on January 28, 2016 at 10:15am. A citizens' action group, Friends of Green Cove, opposed the project, launching a letter and information campaign focused mostly on the location within the National Park. The Green Cove location chosen for the project is a pink granite outcrop along the iconic Cabot Trail, one of the few places where the sea is accessible to the public, and, unlike the Vimy Memorial, has absolutely no military significance. Trigiani refused to even consider other locations.

The project was approved by the Conservative government of Stephen Harper, which donated $100,000 to the memorial foundation[5] without any public input or discussion. It was cancelled by Parks Canada in February 2016 following the 2015 federal election that brought a Liberal government to power, in response to opposition by those who wished to preserve the Green Cove site in its natural state[6], and by others who believed the proposed monument to be in poor taste,[3][7] such as The Globe and Mail which, in an editorial, described it as "hubristic, ugly and just plain wrong".[8]

References

  1. ↑ "Parks Canada backs out of controversial 'Mother Canada' war memorial project in Cape Breton". National Post. 5 February 2016. Retrieved 8 February 2016.
  2. 1 2 "Mother Canada statue won't be built in Cape Breton after all". Toronto Star. 5 February 2016. Retrieved 8 February 2016.
  3. 1 2 "Mother Canada project won't go ahead in Cape Breton park". CBC News. 6 February 2016. Retrieved 8 February 2016.
  4. ↑ "Parks Canada scraps plan for war monument at Green Cove | Cape Breton Post". www.capebretonpost.com. Retrieved 2018-08-18.
  5. ↑ "Mother Canada statue's future under Liberal government review". CBC News. 4 December 2015. Retrieved 8 February 2016.
  6. ↑ "Rocky reception for war memorial at Green Cove". The Chronicle Herald. 2014-10-15. Retrieved 2018-08-18.
  7. ↑ "What's wrong with the colossal monument at Green Cove | Contrarian". Contrarian. 2014-11-12. Retrieved 2018-08-18.
  8. ↑ "Mother Canada statue is hubristic, ugly and just plain wrong (editorial)". The Globe and Mail. 23 June 2015. Retrieved 8 February 2016.


Coordinates: 46°45′02″N 60°19′26″W / 46.750612°N 60.323846°W / 46.750612; -60.323846

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