Ont. names highway in honour of fallen soldiers

Meagan Fitzpatrick, CanWest News Service
Published: Friday, August 24, 2007

A stretch of Canada's busiest highway will bear the name Highway of Heroes in honour of the country's fallen soldiers.

The Ontario Ministry of Transportation confirmed on Friday plans to designate the portion of Highway 401 from Trenton, Ont., to Toronto with the new name.

Transportation Minister Donna Cansfield said she and Premier Dalton McGuinty supported the idea as soon as they heard about it.

"When someone does give that sacrifice it's a way to pay that kind of deference and honour and respect, not only to those individuals but to their families. It's like a living legacy," Cansfield told CanWest News Service.

Cansfield said government officials will consult with veterans groups and others impacted by the decision to determine how the idea should be implemented.

"It's an opportunity for us to remember, to provide the respect to our troops which I think is really important, especially in this day and age," said Cansfield. "It's a whole lot more than just one day in November."

The highway will retain its official name as the Macdonald-Cartier Freeway but the 172-kilometre stretch from Trenton to Toronto will have signs marking it as the Highway of Heroes.

It is the route travelled when a fallen soldier is brought back to Canada from Afghanistan. The body is flown to Canadian Forces Base Trenton and then goes on to the coroner's office in Toronto in a convoy of vehicles that includes the soldier's family.

Since 2002, when the first of Canada's fallen soldiers were returned from Afghanistan, people have lined the bridges over the highway to pay their respects as the convoy passes. The crowds, which seem to grow in number with each death, wave Canadian flags and solemnly stand by as the hearse makes its way down the road with a police escort.

In June, a front-page photo of one such event, taken by Cobourg, Ont.-based photojournalist Pete Fisher and published in the Toronto Sun, sparked a chain reaction that led to the government's decision to name the stretch of road the Highway of Heroes.

In his column that ran with the photo, Sun writer Joe Warmington described the phenomenon of people lining the bridges from Trenton to Toronto as the "highway of heroes" and Fisher later wrote a piece about it in his local newspaper, Northumberland Today.

He had been contacted by a volunteer firefighter who said the highway should officially be renamed and Fisher agreed, writing that it would be a fitting tribute to honour the soldiers and their families. Someone posted that article on the website army.ca and it was seen by a man named Jay Forbes, who then created an online petition.

The story was picked up by the national media this past week and gained momentum.

On Thursday morning there were approximately 9,000 signatures on the site and by Friday afternoon there were more than 30,000.

Fisher said he was grateful when he heard about the government's decision.

"Playing a small part in this was more than enough for me but it's every other person that signed their name and stood on the bridge that did this," he said.

Fisher said he had mixed emotions because while he is pleased a permanent tribute will mark the highway, he wishes it wasn't necessary.

"I'm happy that the right thing was done," he said. "It's unfortunate that it has to be this way," he added.

The photojournalist has been covering the bridge gatherings since 2002 and he will be out on the highway again in the coming days as two more soldiers, killed in Afghanistan on Wednesday, are returned home.

Fisher said regardless of their view of the mission in Afghanistan, Canadians should attend the events, which he said can be very emotional, particularly when the fallen soldier's family acknowledges spectators with a wave from the motorcade.

"Because you know that you've made that connection, for that brief moment, with the family, to say 'We're there with you,'" Fisher said.


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