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Jul 28, 2016

The Honourable Kent Hehr, Minister of Veterans Affairs and Associate Minister of National Defence, joined Veterans and their families in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, today to announce that the previously closed Veterans Affairs Canada office will reopen in November, 2016.

The new Charlottetown office will be located at 1st floor, 191 Great George Street, Charlottetown, PE, and once opened, will employ approximately 10 staff who will serve approximately 2,000 Veterans. Staff at the Charlottetown office will answer questions about VAC services and benefits; arrange pension medical examinations; and, assist Veterans to complete and submit applications and receipts. Case-managed Veterans will also be able to meet with their case manager.

More information: Veterans Affairs Canada office in Charlottetown to reopen November, 2016

Jul 27, 2016

The Honourable Kent Hehr, Minister of Veterans Affairs and Associate Minister of National Defence, joined Veterans and their families in Sydney, Nova Scotia, on July 27^th to announce that the previously closed Veterans Affairs Canada office will reopen in November 2016.

The new Sydney office will be located at 1^st floor, 70 Crescent Street, Sydney NS, and once opened, will employ approximately 15 staff who will serve approximately 2,200 Veterans. Staff at the Sydney office will answer questions about VAC services and benefits; arrange pension medical examinations; and assist Veterans to complete and submit applications and receipts. Case-managed Veterans will also be able to meet with their case manager.

More information: Veterans Affairs Canada office in Sydney to reopen November 2016

Jul 08, 2016

On Tuesday, July 5, Veterans and their families joined the Honourable Kent Hehr, Minister of Veterans Affairs and Associate Minister of National Defence, in Corner Brook, Newfoundland, to officially re-open the first of nine Veterans Affairs Offices to be opened across the country.

The office, located at 1 Regent Square in Corner Brook, is the first of nine offices that will re-open in Charlottetown, PE; Sydney, NS; Windsor and Thunder Bay, ON; Saskatoon, SK; Brandon, MB; and, Prince George and Kelowna, BC. A tenth office will open in Surrey, BC, and outreach will be expanded to Veterans in the territories.

Jul 03, 2016

The Honourable Kent Hehr, Minister of Veterans Affairs and Associate Minister of National Defence, and members of a Canadian delegation marking the centennial anniversaries of the Battles of the Somme and Beaumont-Hamel today attended a remembrance ceremony at the Canadian National Vimy Memorial.

Jul 02, 2016

On July 2, 2016, the Honourable Kent Hehr, Minister of Veterans Affairs and Associate Minister of National Defence, and the Canadian delegation participated in a commemorative ceremony at the Courcelette Canadian Memorial. This memorial stands on a small, well-tended site with beautiful greenery. On the granite block of the memorial is recorded the simple inscription: “The Canadian Corps bore a valiant part in forcing back the Germans on these slopes during the battles of the Somme Sept. 3rd - Nov. 18th 1916.” There are more than ten varieties of maple trees planted and tended to on the memorial site. Few bright colours in the gardens allow visitors to meditate and reflect on the monument’s somber message.

Jul 01, 2016

On July 1, 2016, the Honourable Kent Hehr, Minister of Veterans Affairs and Associate Minister of National Defence, and the Canadian delegation participated in a commemorative ceremony at the Beaumont-Hamel Newfoundland Memorial in honour of those who fought and died 100 years ago at Beaumont-Hamel on July 1, 1916—the opening day of the Battle of the Somme.

A number of dignitaries attended the commemorative ceremony marking the 100^th anniversary of the battle and laid wreaths in honour of the fallen. They included Their Royal Highnesses The Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall, the Honourable Kent Hehr, Minister of Veterans Affairs Canada, the Honourable George Furey, Speaker of the Senate, the Honourable Lawrence Cannon, Ambassador of Canada to France, Jean-Marc Todeschini, Secretary of State responsible for Veterans, representatives of Canadian Veterans’ organizations, Veterans and Canadian youth.

Jun 30, 2016

On Thursday, June 30, 2016, the Honourable Kent Hehr, Minister of Veterans Affairs and Associate Minister of National Defence, and the Canadian delegation took part in a commemorative ceremony at the Adanac Military Cemetery (name formed by reversing the letters of “Canada”), which was created after the First World War Armistice in 1918. There are 3,186 Commonwealth burials and commemorations of the First World War in this cemetery, of which approximately 1,000 are Canadian.

Jun 30, 2016

On June 30, 2016, the Honourable Kent Hehr, Minister of Veterans Affairs and Associate Minister of National Defence, and the Canadian delegation had a guided tour of the In Flanders Fields Museum in Ypres, Belgium. The museum is a permanent exhibition located in the Cloth Hall of Ypres. It tells the story of the First World War in the West Flanders front region. Here, soldiers from five continents and fifty countries and cultures are represented. The museum offers an opportunity to climb the 231 steps of the bell tower, allowing visitors to see both the city and the fields where the battles were fought.

Jun 30, 2016

On June 30, 2016, the Honourable Kent Hehr, Minister of Veterans Affairs and Associate Minister of National Defence, and the Canadian delegation took part in the daily memorial ceremony at the Menin Gate Memorial in Ypres, Belgium. Located in the eastern ramparts of Ypres, Menin Gate was chosen as the site of the memorial arch after the First World War. Nearly 55,000 soldiers of the British Commonwealth who fell in Belgium and have no known graves are commemorated by name on the walls of the Hall of Memory and elsewhere in the Memorial—6,940 of them are Canadian.

Carved in stone above the central arch of the Memorial are the words: “To the armies of the British Empire who stood here from 1914 to 1918 and to those of their dead who have no known grave.” To this day, the fallen are remembered every day at 8:00 p.m. in a simple ceremony. All traffic through the gateway is halted and buglers sound the Last Post.

Jun 29, 2016

On Wednesday, June 29, 2016, the Honourable Kent Hehr, Minister of Veterans Affairs and Associate Minister of National Defence, and the Canadian delegation visited the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. The Commission marks and maintains Commonwealth graves from both the First and Second World Wars. Included in this mandate is the commemoration of some 1.7 million war dead in over 150 countries. Of this number, more than 935,000 have known graves and are buried in one of the Commission’s 2,500 war cemeteries or plots or within some 20,000 other burial grounds worldwide.