Honourable senators, 70 years ago, in the early morning hours of June 25, 1950, the communist forces of North Korea launched an all-out offensive against the South Korean people. Within three weeks, all that remained of the country was a small, defensive perimeter around the Port of Pusan. The free and democratic nations of the world would not stand idly by as forces from 16 nations, including Canada, descended upon Korea to stem the tide of battle and to bring deliverance to a desperate people. But, honourable senators, when these heroes of the Korean War returned to Canada they found empty train and bus stations, no ticker tape parades, just people going about their usual business, oblivious to the Korean War that had taken millions of lives, including the lives of their fellow Canadians who remain buried in Pusan today.

Largely due to the efforts of the veterans themselves, the Korean War would be remembered. Through their fundraising efforts, they established the Korea Veterans Association of Canada Wall of Remembrance in 1997 in the Meadowvale Cemetery in Brampton, Ontario. I am grateful to all those who paid their respects earlier today at the wall and to Mayor Patrick Brown, who will lay a wreath this afternoon and has vowed to care for the national memorial in his city.

As a newly appointed senator in 2009, I had no idea how relentlessly and unapologetically I would have to work to remove the “forgotten war” label, to elevate Canada’s third-bloodiest war to its rightful place in the annals of Canadian history. The year 2013 was designated the year of the Korean War veteran by then-Minister of Veteran Affairs Steven Blaney, to commemorate the sixtieth anniversary of the Korean War Armistice. The Korea Day ceremony was held and attended by then-Governor General David Johnston, hundreds of veterans, dignitaries and spectators at the National War Memorial, followed by a grand military parade.

This year, which marks the seventieth anniversary of the breakout of the Korean War, stood in marked contrast. Due to COVID-19, there was concern about whether we should even hold the ceremony, but veterans insisted. If they didn’t stand in silence, who would?

So, with only a few, we gathered. With masked donned, we stood silent. Six feet apart, we remembered.

I stood on my marked position in front of the Monument to Canadian Fallen, the Korea War memorial that stands in Confederation Park. As described on the Veteran Affairs Canada website:

The monument shows an unarmed Canadian soldier holding a young Korean girl and guiding a Korean boy. The children represent the generations of Koreans who live in freedom thanks to those who served and those who made the supreme sacrifice. . . . The monument bears the inscription: “We’ll never forget you brave sons of Canada” in English, French and Korean, along with the names of the 516 Canadian soldiers who died serving in the Korean War.

Looking into the eyes of those heroes on Sunday, I know they gathered even under the threat of COVID-19, because the nightmares they lived through in Korea are real. Communism and tyranny aren’t dead, even though their fallen comrades are gone forever. Their love of Korea and her people endure and has, in fact, deepened with the passage of time.

Honourable senators, today is the seventieth anniversary of the breakout of the Korean War and the beginning of the three-year commemorative campaign. Our veterans did their duty; now it falls on us to do ours before it is too late.