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Prime Minister Justin Trudeau leaves right now for Europe, the place he’ll take part in high-stakes talks with different world leaders about urgent points like local weather change and the race to vaccinate individuals in low- and middle-income international locations.
Whereas a lot of the almost week-long journey might be dominated by the G20 assembly in Rome and the next twenty sixth “convention of the events” (COP26) local weather summit in Glasgow, Trudeau has carved out time for an official go to to the Netherlands, a rustic with shut historic and diplomatic ties to Canada.
A authorities official, talking on background to reporters at a briefing forward of the journey, stated Trudeau was invited by Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte to “actually deepen the ties between our two international locations, that are already very deep.” Rutte made a visit to Canada in 2018 and Trudeau is “returning the invitation,” the official stated.
The 2 international locations are carefully aligned on international coverage issues, the official stated, pointing to ongoing cooperation on the local weather file as the 2 nations push different developed international locations to do extra to assist flip again rising world temperatures.
In an interview with CBC Information, Ontario Unbiased Sen. Peter Boehm, a former G7 sherpa, stated Rutte and Trudeau can use the diplomatic face time to debate how finest to strategy the Rome summit.
The G20 international locations alone symbolize 80 per cent of the worldwide economic system and the majority of annual greenhouse fuel emissions. That makes the Rome summit — coming simply earlier than COP26, the place the place of G20 nations might be crucial — particularly necessary.
A gathering of the G20 atmosphere ministers arrived at an deadlock earlier this 12 months when it failed to achieve an settlement on priorities like phasing out coal and limiting world warming to 1.5 C. A number of international locations, together with China, India, Russia and Saudi Arabia, balked at among the proposed language.
Canada and the Netherlands may assist dealer a practical resolution by artistic “wordsmithing,” Boehm stated.
“It is a pleasant, simple relationship and I’d say, because the prime minister is on that facet of the Atlantic anyway, renewing that friendship is solely applicable by way of the way in which these items go,” Boehm stated, noting that Trudeau and Rutte — who leads the centrist Folks’s Social gathering for Freedom and Democracy — are ideologically aligned.
“They’re going to talk about bilateral points, world considerations and they’re going to evaluate notes on COP going into Glasgow.”
Throughout a cease within the Hague, the diplomatic capital of the Netherlands, Trudeau is anticipated to ship an deal with to parliamentarians on the Binnenhof. He is then scheduled to journey with Princess Margriet — a member of the Dutch royal household who was born in Ottawa whereas in exile through the Second World Struggle — to put a wreath on the Bergen op Zoom Canadian struggle cemetery within the nation’s south.
7,500 Canadian troopers died throughout liberation of the Netherlands
The Canadian-Dutch relationship is undeniably outlined by the 2 international locations’ shared expertise throughout that bloody battle. Greater than 7,500 Canadian women and men died whereas liberating the Netherlands from Nazi rule in late 1944 and early 1945, earlier than Germany’s give up.
“We’re perpetually grateful to these courageous Canadian troopers who carried the sunshine of freedom to our nation in its darkest hour,” Rutte stated throughout his 2018 deal with to the Canadian Parliament. “This, we’ll always remember.”
Geoffrey Hayes is a professor of historical past on the College of Waterloo and an knowledgeable on the First Canadian Military’s liberation of the Netherlands. A frequent customer to the nation, Hayes stated he is all the time struck by the respect Dutch civilians present to the previous Canadian troopers who helped free that nation after a brutal eight-month-long army marketing campaign.
“I keep in mind, within the Nineties, on the fiftieth anniversary of the liberation, Canadians had been invited over and it was simply overwhelming to see the Dutch villagers who had been swarming these outdated Canadian veterans. They had been like rock stars. It actually was one thing. The reception was fairly extraordinary,” Hayes instructed CBC Information.
“They respect the Canadian involvement in a means that the majority Canadians simply do not perceive. Plenty of guys acquired killed in eight to 10 months of the struggle and it is one thing that the Dutch acknowledge in regards to the Canadian place.”
Whereas serving to the Dutch safe their freedom, the Canadian victories additionally helped to shore up essential provide strains to Allied armies as they continued their push towards Germany.
“We regularly recommend that the struggle was over by early ’45 nevertheless it definitely wasn’t within the cities and villages of the Netherlands that had been liberated by the Canadians,” Hayes stated. “It is one of many neglected parts of the struggle. We weren’t charging in the direction of Berlin and weren’t speeding to occupy Germany.”
After the struggle, Canadian engineers helped to interchange blown-out dikes, desalinate contaminated soil and “get individuals again on their toes after the preventing,” Hayes stated. Canadian civil affairs officers additionally helped native officers restore democratic establishments like city councils that had been marginalized below German rule.
The three Canadian struggle cemeteries within the Netherlands — together with the one in Bergen op Zoom that Trudeau will go to Friday — are immaculately maintained by each the Commonwealth Struggle Graves Fee and the Dutch villagers who reside close by.
“It is a custom in lots of households there to are inclined to particular graves,” Hayes stated.
Dutch royal born in Ottawa
Princess Juliana — who later reigned as Queen of the Netherlands from 1948 to 1980 — went along with her household into exile in Canada through the Nazi occupation of their nation, staying on the Stornoway residence in Ottawa. (Stornoway, a fantastic however modest mansion within the Rockcliffe Park neighbourhood, is now the official residence of the chief of the Official Opposition.)
Juliana gave start to Margriet on the Ottawa Civic Hospital in 1943 and Canada quickly ceded its declare to that territory to make sure the younger princess was born a Dutch nationwide. The diplomatic gesture ensured Margriet wouldn’t be saved out of the road of succession to the throne.
“The Dutch royal household is absolutely fairly unpretentious. They had been a part of the scene in Ottawa, they had been seen freely strolling round with their kids — that was clearly appreciated,” Hayes stated, noting that the Netherlands nonetheless sends Ottawa roughly 10,000 tulip bulbs annually to repay the kindness proven by Canadians at a time of disaster.
“These sorts of hyperlinks are within the far distant previous however they’re necessary. There are actually sturdy hyperlinks now between Canada and the Dutch due to all this.”
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