Events That Have Changed Canada Forever

The Charter is a part of the Constitution Act, 1982; all of which is in the Canada Act, 1982. Receiving the approval of the Britain for the last time, on April 17, 1982 in Ottawa, Queen Elizabeth II signed the Canada Act, 1982. This gave Canada control over its Constitution. The guarantee of rights and freedoms in the Charter became part of the supreme law of the Canada.

The equality rights section of the Charter was delayed until April 17, 1985. This gave governments time to update laws to meet equality requirements.

This impacted Canada by giving all Canadians the knowledge of there freedoms and equalities. Also having a Charter of Rights and Freedoms in our Constitution has brought Canada in line with other liberal democracies in the world, all of whom have bills of rights that can be enforced by the courts.

The final even I will discuss is that of The Battle Of Vimy Ridge. The Battle of Vimy Ridge created the first true sense of Canadian battle. Forces from each of the provinces joined together and did what other Allied forces during the First World War had failed to do, storming the ridge and conquering strong German forces.

Controlling Vimy Ridge gave the Germans control of most of Northern France, and they made this point one of the most heavily defended points on World War I’s Western Front. A massive combination of tunnels, trenches, barbed wire, artillery, and machine guns took the lives of 150,000 French soldiers in 1915.

In 1917, the Allies decided to launch another attack. Canadian forces, still largely unproven in war, were called in for the attack. For the first time, all four divisions of the Canadian Corps would fight together.

The Canadians gave each platoon specific instructions and tasks. Infantry had specialized roles as machine gunners, riflemen, and grenade throwers and were trained to use highly detailed maps to guide them on the battlefield rather than relying on the officers for direction. For months, the soldiers trained on replicas of the ridge.

On April 2, 1917, the Battle of Vimy Ridge began. The Canadian Corps fired at the German forces for a full week, using over one million bullets.

Attacking together for the first time, the four Canadian divisions stormed the ridge at 5:30am on April 9, 1917. Within two hours, three of the four divisions had reached their objective. The fourth division was caught on Hill 145, where the Vimy Ridge Memorial now stands. Many Canadian soldiers forced their way through machine gun fire armed only with bayonets to force German surrender, and they finally succeeded in taking the hill.

The battle continued for three intense days before the Allies could claim victory. During the entire battle, 3,598 Canadians were killed and another 7,000 were wounded.

The determination, creativity, and heroism displayed by Canada’s combined forces during this epic World War I battle cemented the Canadians’ reputation as the finest troops on the Western Front, and secured the country a place at the table during the Armistice negotiations. Vimy ridge impacted Canada today militarily because before that Canada was thought of as untrained and poorly equipped. After Canada showed its true potential Canada gained overall respect from other countries.

Canada has been historically modified in a variety of ways from the 20th century with the involvement in the Korean War, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and the Battle at Vimy Ridge.