Armenian Genocide Commemoration in Toronto

The Armenian community of Toronto, Canada, held a commemoration event for the victims of the Armenian genocide in 1915. The centennial commemoration gathering on April 19, 2015, organized at Queen’s Park in Toronto, was attended by Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne, Minister of National Defense of Canada Jason Kenney, Mayor of Toronto John Tory, Cardinal Thomas Collins, parliamentarians, federal and provincial officials. The Estimated number of participants was 5-6,000 people.

As people were gathering at Queen’s Park to start the commemoration event, two dozens of Turkish and Azerbaijani people were brought to the area with flags and posters to stage a counter-demonstration across the street. They were holding posters with denialist statements such as “A just memory is not a one-sided memory,” “Approximately 40,000 illegal Armenian workers in Turkey with no harassment,” “Stop trying to re-write the history,” etc.

While Turkish and Azerbaijani flag-holders were holding their posters, and their coordinator was doing his best to orchestrate a louder counter-demonstration in isolation across the street, Armenians were being joined by various communities such as Pontian Greeks, Assyrians, Jews, Kurds, Rwandans and Cypriots, who came to express solidarity and show that they recognize and condemn the Armenian genocide.

In the name of the Armenian community of Toronto the organizers thanked the Canadian people and government for officially recognizing the Armenian genocide and being one of the first countries in the world to open their arms and host Armenian orphans on their land. Speakers included Minister of National Defense and Multiculturalism Jason Kenney, Premier of Ontario Kathleen Wynne, parliamentarians, federal and provincial officials. The keynote speaker was film director Atom Egoyan.

Mariam Davitian, who represents the Armenian National Committee of Toronto, emphasized that if barbaric atrocities against peaceful population are unpunished, they create new crimes against humanity, “The present reign of terror in the Middle East by ISIS and their aspiration to create intolerance and extremism are strikingly similar to the butchery that the Ottoman Empire perpetrated against the Armenian, Greek and Assyrian minorities. Today, we remember the men, women and children, who were sacrificed at the altar of intolerance.”

Ambassador of Armenia in Canada Armen Eganyan thanked the Canadian government and people for recognizing the Armenian genocide and said that the failure of the international community to recognize and punish the Armenian genocide and similar atrocities is in the roots of atrocities that are happening now. “The Armenian genocide set the practice of racial extermination as a tool of policy in the modern world, and it was echoed in Holodomor, Holocaust, genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, Darfur and elsewhere,” said the Ambassador.

Minister of National Defense of Canada Jason Kenney reaffirmed Canada’s commitment to human values and recognition of the Armenian genocide, and added that his colleague, MP Brad Butt has put forward Motion 587 that would recognize April as a month of genocide commemoration including the Armenian, Rwandan genocides, Holocaust and other genocides. “I am proud, as the Minister of defense, that we are standing against those seeking to wipe out of this earth the remaining Assyrians, Yezidis and Christians of Mesopotamia. We will stand with them to protect them, to prevent another genocide.”

Kathleen Wynne, Premier of Ontario, said in her speech that she is proud that the Canadian Museum of Human Rights has a section dedicated to the Armenian genocide. “The Armenian genocide was a dark moment in the history, and the passage of a century has not diminished the horror of those events. I am proud that Ontario was one of the first places anywhere to acknowledge this atrocity. We must continue to stand together against hatred and make sue the atrocities of the past are not repeated,” said Kathleen Wynne.

Mayor of Toronto John Tory said as a community Torontonians should work together and make sure the atrocities in the past are acknowledged, because atrocities are taking place now first of all due to the fact that past atrocities were not recognized. “I can assure you of this: the memory of the genocide will be appropriately immortalized in the city of Toronto,” Mayor John Tory said.

Film director Atom Egoyan said that today violence continues through denial. “Turkish Prime-Minister said that Turkey shares the suffering of Armenians. Let us be clear: Turkey cannot share the suffering of Armenians, cannot compare the level of this catastrophic loss. It can understand it, Turkey can feel sorry for it, it can apologize. With each passing day that the Turkish state denies this atrocity, it creates its catalogue of horrors,” Egoyan said.

The participants of the commemoration event of the Armenian genocide continued in a Unity March down to Metropolitan United Church of Toronto, where Roman Catholic Archbishop Cardinal Thomas Collins led an Ecumenical Religious Service in participation of church heads from Armenian, Greek and other communities.

By Kamo Mailyan,
Toronto-Yerevan
Special for 168 Zham