EDITORIAL - Bill C-217 would safeguard Canada’s war memorials from vandals

A private member’s bill tabled recently in Canada’s Parliament, which calls for the formal prosecution of all persons who deface monuments honouring Canada’s war dead, is long overdue.

On Nov. 8, Minister of Veterans Affairs Steven Blaney announced that the Conservative Government is supporting Bill C-217. The proposed law would make it an offence to commit mischief in relation to a monument that honours Canadians who died as a consequence of war.
“Our cenotaphs and monuments are powerful reminders of the sacrifices that generations of Canadians have made for the peace and freedom we enjoy today,” said Blaney. “Our Government is proud to support Bill C-217 which will enforce strict punishments for those who dishonour the memory of our Veterans by defacing war memorials within our communities.
“As Canadians, we have a duty as a nation to preserve our memorials in honour of our fallen men and women, our veterans and those who continue to serve Canada today,” he continued. “We must respect our war memorials as they symbolize the important contributions of our veterans and service men and women.”
The bill, tabled by central Ontario Conservative MP David Tilson, proposes the implementation of mandatory minimum sentences that would be the same whether the crown prosecution proceeds by indictment or by way of summary conviction. There would be a $1,000 fine for a first offence, 14 days imprisonment for a second, and 30 days imprisonment for third and subsequent offences.
While desecration of Canada’s war monuments has usually been rare, Bill 217 comes along as concern grows in light of some troubling incidents. Perhaps the most notorious occurred in 2006 when a small group of drunken male teenagers were caught in the act of urinating on the National War Memorial in Ottawa. Photographs of them which appeared in newspapers across Canada raised the nation’s awareness.
In the meantime, municipal officials in Montreal’s Notre-Dame-de-Grâce district have been having trouble keeping a war cenotaph in one of the area’s largest and most visible public areas free of graffiti. While war memorials have usually been considered off-limits by graffiti makers, over the past two years the more lawless among them have persisted in defacing the NDG war memorial with indecipherable markings.
Clearly the message underlying their cryptic scrawlings is that nothing is sacred anymore. Hopefully, Bill 217 will make an impact on those who insist on perpetrating this injustice.
Although mandatory minimum sentences, now in so many pieces of legislation tabled by the Conservative government, have brought criticism from established legal scholars, taking measures to protect Canada’s priceless and vulnerable war memorials is entirely justifiable and appropriate.
Not only are the memorials standing evidence of the record of Canada’s historic involvement in wars and conflicts which cost so many lives, but the issue is also personal: the names of the fallen which are inscribed on many of the war monuments should be safeguarded from anti-social forces whose purpose is only to offend and to denigrate.