The Japanese Canadian War Memorial has become a site of cultural persistence for the Japanese-Canadian community in the face of enormous challenges. Every year, it continues to be the site of Remembrance Day ceremonies sponsored by the Japanese Canadian community and is tangibly linked to one of the major milestones of Canadian constitutional democracy in the twentieth century, the 1931 attainment by the Japanese Canadian veterans of the right to vote in provincial elections. The Japanese Canadian War Memorial Committee was formed in 1984 to restore the cenotaph, relight the lantern and host the Remembrance Day Ceremony each year. The committee became a program of the Nikkei National Museum & Culture Center in 2013 to further this purpose. The Japanese Canadian War Memorial is a listed heritage landscape resource on the Vancouver Heritage Register, and is a significant historical resource within the Stanley Park National Historic Site in the City of Vancouver.

The recent conservation of the monument has been undertaken by the JCWM Committee, with cost-shared funding provided by the Veterans Affairs Canada, other granting bodies, and community funding. Van den Kerkhof & Son Masonry cleaned, scaled and dressed the stonework, repaired the cracked marble lantern, installed new glass panels matching the original, and relit the lantern and a bronze plaque was added for the Afghanistan conflict.

Donald Luxton

Megan Faulkner

R.J. McCulloch