Wageningen, Netherlands
5 May 2015
Good afternoon.
Goedemiddag.
Your Royal Highness, Ambassador, ministers and colleagues from both of our parliaments, veterans and members of the Canadian, Dutch, British, Polish, American armed forces, and organizing committee members, Mayor, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, and students.
It is a real pleasure and an immense honour to be here and be able to speak to you today.
On an anniversary of such monumental significance, the Dutch and Canadian citizens alike, I think we’re all glad we have a bit drier, warmer weather now, sunny.
The veterans tell me that 70 years ago, it was just as wet but a lot colder.
So we should count ourselves lucky.
I know I speak for all the Canadians here, in particular our esteemed veterans, when I thank you from the bottom of my heart for the kindness you have shown us.
In your appreciation for the courage and sacrifice of our soldiers, you also honour the powerful bond between our countries and the lasting strength of the values that Canada and the Netherlands share.
Because when you honour our soldiers, you honour those values, the values for which they fought, and in too many cases died.
Freedom, democracy, justice, human dignity.
There are so many ties that bind Dutch and Canadian citizens but none more than this beautiful town, for this historic place is a symbol of the ultimate victory of our values.
The surrender of the 25th German Army 70 years ago today to Canadian Lieutenant General Charles Foulkes, it was more than a capitulation of tyranny to the relentless advance of liberation, more than the defeat of despair in the face of hope, it was the victory of an old truth.
Evil cannot triumph over an army that marches with the winds of freedom at its back.
Let this encourage us even today as we find our own path in troubled times in the Middle East, in Eastern Europe, and so many other parts of the world.
Ladies and gentlemen, it is so incredibly moving to visit the Netherlands and to see your tributes to our lost soldiers, especially for our veterans here with us today, after all these decades.
A familiar Canadian name on a bridge there, on a street here, in fact, General Foulkes’ name on that street right there.
To see the love and care that is paid to their final resting places, to see the candles at Christmas at Holten, but most of all, to see the honour and love you shower upon our veterans, in particular the veterans who travelled so far to be with us today.
One big hand for all of them.
You know, in a touching letter to the editor of a Canadian newspaper back in 1946, a writer from this country wishes our troops farewell and remarks on the tears that will greet them upon their return home.
The letter goes on, and I quote: “A tear is a smile with a heart and that same heart is beating in the small low-lying country near the sea, Holland, that will set down your name in the chronicles of its history.”
You have kept that promise.
Seventy years, many generations, an entire lifetime.
After these veterans came here as liberators, and still your devotion to them has not in any way diminished.
It is truly humbling and it is also another thing our two countries have in common.
When it comes to their bravery and resolve, we have never forgotten and neither have you.
For that you have in turn the deepest gratitude of all Canadians.
Out of the horrors of war and oppression blossomed one of the greatest friendships in the world.
And that friendship between us, between Canada and the Netherlands, is the war’s greatest legacy.
Yesterday I visited a beautiful cemetery where hundreds of our soldiers lie row on row and I spoke of some of these things.
That our history is a light that reveals the path ahead.
We can remember it and honour it or we can let it fade and finally vanish.
It is, ladies and gentlemen, the difference between stepping confidently into the future and stumbling aimlessly in the dark.
For generations the great people of the Netherlands have kept alight this torch of memory.
It is incumbent on all of us in particular our young people, so many who are here today, to take it up and keep it burning that we may walk under its light forever.
Thank you.
Dank u.
