Above: Sean O’Shea reports on the 100th anniversary of the First World War
OTTAWA – Prime Minister Stephen Harper marked the 100th anniversary of the beginning of the First World War Monday.
Harper visited the National War Memorial on Parliament Hill at 11:11 a.m., then delivered remarks at the nearby Canadian War Museum overlooking the Ottawa River.
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Canada went to war a century ago when Britain declared war against Germany.
In all, about 620,000 Canadians enlisted during the war and about 419,000 went overseas. About 60,000 would never come home.
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The war was considered a turning point in Canadian history, when the country shed its colonial mindset to become a nation in its own right.
The successes of Canadian soldiers on battlefields that included Ypres, Vimy and Passchendaele spurred a deep sense of national pride and a belief that Canada could stand on its own, separate from Britain, on the international stage.
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