{"id":12240,"date":"2015-10-14T19:55:59","date_gmt":"2015-10-14T23:55:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=12240"},"modified":"2015-10-21T16:34:02","modified_gmt":"2015-10-21T20:34:02","slug":"tank-and-tulips-to-transform-cenotaph-park","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/tank-and-tulips-to-transform-cenotaph-park\/","title":{"rendered":"Tank and tulips to transform Cenotaph park"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Cenotaph has been the focal point of Aurora\u2019s Remembrance Day services for well over 80 years but, this week, ground will be broken on two fronts to transform this place of commemoration and contemplation for generations to come.<\/p>\n

This Saturday, October 17, Aurorans are invited to come out to the Cenotaph to commemorate the 70th anniversary of Dutch-Canadian Friendship with the planting of a new tulip garden. The public planting ceremony gets underway at 10 a.m.<\/p>\n

The Town of Aurora last week announced it was one of 140 recipients of bulbs through the Dutch-Canadian Friendship Tulip gardens project, an initiative of the Canadian Garden Council, to celebrate the unique relationship between Canada and the Netherlands, a relationship that was forged during the Second World War.<\/p>\n

Not only was Canada instrumental in the liberation of The Netherlands at the end of the conflict, Canada provided a home for the exiled Dutch Princess (later Queen) Julianna and her daughters, including the future Queen Beatrix. During their time in Ottawa, Princess Juliana gave birth to her third daughter, Princess Margriet, in a room at Ottawa General Hospital that was declared Dutch soil to ensure she was born on native ground.<\/p>\n

Since then, the Netherlands has gifted Canada with 100,000 tulip bulbs each year to foster this relationship. <\/p>\n

When in full bloom, Aurora\u2019s Dutch-Canadian Friendship Garden will bring to life 700 red and white bulbs courtesy of Vesey\u2019s Bulbs of Prince Edward Island and secure the Town a place on the 2016 Canada\u2019s Garden Route. <\/p>\n

\u201cVeterans, students and the community are invited to attend the planting ceremony, where the story of the Dutch princess born in Ottawa during WWII and the history of enduring friendship between Canada and the Netherlands will be retold so that it lives on for generations,\u201d said the Town in a statement. <\/p>\n

The Cenotaph and Peace Park is set to be transformed further by the addition of a decommissioned light armoured vehicle, which will serve as a vivid reminder of those who served in the recent Afghanistan conflict.<\/p>\n

Council approved the placement of LAV III, along with a cement pad and commemorative plaque to house it, in principle at last week\u2019s General Committee meeting following a presentation by Kirk Corkery of the Queen\u2019s York Rangers.<\/p>\n

The Department of National Defence announced up to 250 decommissioned light armoured vehicles (LAVs) would be available to communities across the country to be placed in prominent locations to recognize the service and sacrifices of Canadian Armed Forces personnel serving in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe criteria [the program is] looking for are ties with Afghanistan, the Armed Forces, sacrifice, ties with the military defence industry, and location of the monument,\u201d Corkery told Councillors last week. \u201c70,000 soldiers went over to Afghanistan over 13 years and many of them do have connections to York Region. 158 of them did not come back. Of the Queen\u2019s York Rangers, the Regiment here in Town, approximately 40 per cent of the soldiers did serve over there. LAVs were used extensively in Afghanistan.\u201d<\/p>\n

Once approved at Council this week, it could be as late as next spring when the decommissioned LAV \u2013 that is, a vehicle that has been refurbished and rendered non-functional \u201cin any way, shape or form\u201d by students at Fanshawe College as part of their welding program \u2013 arrives in Aurora and, pending the installation of a new concrete pad and commemorative plaque, will be ready for public view before next year\u2019s Remembrance Day ceremonies.<\/p>\n

The Queen\u2019s York Rangers Regimental Council will foot the $17,000 bill for the cost of the vehicle, while Council has tentatively approved kicking in up to $15,000 for the concrete pedestal and plaque, to be funded out of the Council Discretionary Reserve fund. <\/p>\n

\u201cI would like to thank yourself and [Regimental] Council for selecting Aurora for this site,\u201d said Councillor Sandra Humfryes. \u201cThe Cenotaph is just such a beautiful place of honour where we can go and remember all of the soldiers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Added Councillor Jeff Thom: \u201cI think this is a brilliant, excellent idea. Aurora does have a connection with the Queen\u2019s York Rangers and we certainly want to support them. We really appreciate you bringing this forward. God bless you guys.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although Councillor Harold Kim said he had some questions about the budget for this project, he said there was a time and a place for everything.
\n\u201cIn some occasions, costs shouldn\u2019t matter,\u201d he said. \u201cIn a case like this, it is so important to remember that you can\u2019t really put a cost to it. I am not going to ask those cost-related questions [I have] and I fully approve this.\u201d<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tulip garden to commemorate 70 years of Canadian-Dutch friendship to be dedicated by dignitaries in Saturday morning ceremony.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12240","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archive"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-3bq","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-02 21:47:47","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12240","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12240"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12240\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}