Mother Canada monument rejected

OTTAWA — Parks Canada’s decision to pull its support of the controversial Mother Canada monument has been met with emotions as polarized as the four-year debate over the proposed statue on Cape Breton’s famed Cabot Trail.

Parks Canada said Friday there are too many unknowns about the towering Never Forgotten National Memorial ahead of the July 1, 2017, target date, including funding and a definitive design for the monument at Green Cove, N.S.

Meg Stokes of the Never Forgotten National Memorial Foundation said Friday the group is disappointed and shocked. Stokes suggested that the statue, which had support in the former Conservative government, had become a political pawn. “This is disappointing to veterans across the country and the current members of the Canadian Forces who support this project, ” Stokes said.

The 24-metre statue depicts a doleful woman with her arms outstretched toward Europe and the Canada Bereft monument at Vimy in France.

The draped figure, meant to embrace soldiers who never returned from distant conflicts, is the brainchild of Toronto businessman Tony Trigiano, who was struck by the number of young Canadians buried in a European cemetery he visited.

The memorial attracted the support of a former prime minister, business heavyweights, prominent journalists and the president of the Calgary Flames.

But the ambitious project also cleaved opinion.

Sean Howard, spokesman for the Friends of Green Cove, said the project would have destroyed the rugged coastline and turned Green Cove into “Concrete Cove.”