On January 14, Orillia’s John A. Macdonald committee stages its annual dinner. Among the features of the evening, historian Ted Barris will address those attending. As 2017 marks both Canada’s sesquicentennial and the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Vimy Ridge, Ted will speak about the significance of Vimy on Canada’s coming of age. On Easter Monday morning – April 9, 1917 – was a near miracle of ingenuity, co-operation and courage among volunteers of the Canadian Corps. Fighting for the first time as a national army, that day, Canadian troops swarmed up that strategic ridge in north-central France and in a matter of hours accomplished what no Allied army had, in nearly three years of blood-letting in Europe. They seized Vimy from an entrenched German army. Indeed, Ted Barris makes the case that those young citizen soldiers gave birth to a nation – Canada.

Ted Barris is an author, journalist and broadcaster. As well as hosting appearances on CBC Radio and regular contributions to the National Post and Legion, Air Force and Zoomer magazine, he is a full-time professor of journalism and broadcasting at Centennial College in Toronto. He has authored 18 published, non-fiction books.

In 2011 he received the Canadian Minister of Veterans’ Affairs Commendation and in 2012 the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal. His book The Great Escape: A Canadian Story received the 2014 Libris Best Non-Fiction Award.