A growing petition in the House of Commons is calling on the federal government to apologize for a war memorial that wrongly identified fallen heroes.
Blacklock's Reporter says the monument, erected in Port Hope, Ont., as part of the Highway of Heroes project, received $3 million in federal funding but included errors that misrepresented military service records.
The petition, e-5330, urges the government to issue a public apology to veterans and their families, replace the flawed installation with a permanent artwork that accurately reflects the sacrifices of Canada’s fallen, and conduct a thorough internal review to prevent future mistakes.
Unveiled in 2022, the memorial listed 67 individuals as having "paid the ultimate sacrifice." However, it was only on December 4 that Veterans Affairs acknowledged some of those named were still alive, had died of natural causes, or never saw combat.
Assistant Deputy Veterans Minister Steven Harris told a parliamentary committee that complaints about the errors had been received.
“We are currently working with the organizers of the monument to glean more information about what they are going to do to resolve these issues. I don’t have a final answer,” he said.
The department claimed it was not responsible for compiling the list of honourees.
Among those mistakenly included were retired Major-General Lewis MacKenzie, 84, and Lieutenant-General Romeo Dallaire, 78, both still alive.
The memorial also named war heroes who survived combat and later died of natural causes, such as Smokey Smith, the last Canadian to win the Victoria Cross, who passed away at 91 in 2005.
First World War Victoria Cross recipient Filip Konowal, who later worked as a House of Commons janitor before his death in 1959, was also listed, as was Roy Brown, the pilot credited with downing the Red Baron, who died of a heart attack decades after the war.
Bloc Québécois MP Luc Desilets, who sponsored the petition, called the situation “unacceptable negligence” and criticized the lack of basic fact-checking.
“A simple name check of the 67 who ‘paid the ultimate sacrifice’ would have uncovered the mistakes,” he said. “How can we claim to honour those who gave everything while botching to this extent a project that should be a model of recognition?”