Honours and Recognitions
They Walked These Streets has received essential support and endorsement from our local Member of Parliament and Member of Provincial Parliament since the beginning. From 2000 to 2025, the Honourable Arif Virani, Member of Parliament, Justice Minister, and Attorney General of Canada for Ta'ai'akon-Parkdale-High Park, along with Member of Provincial Parliament Bhutila Karpoche for Parkdale-High Park and their teams, provided wreaths for our memorial installations and actively participated in our community remembrance project events. Both former MP Virani and MPP Karpoche consistently recorded videos for our social media posts to promote and acknowledge the project and highlighted our work in their newsletters.
On December 9th, 2022, MP Virani made a special members statement in the House of Commons in Ottawa, recognizing our initiative and its significant impact on the community. He stated, "I thank Katy (Whitfield) and Ian (Da Silva) for helping this important history come alive in our community. We will indeed remember them." On October 31st, 2024, MPP Karpoche delivered her member's statement in Queen's Park, emphasizing: "This type of storytelling helps community members connect with the soldiers’ experiences and aids the neighbourhood in understanding how it has been affected by the world wars and by the loss of young men who served and died in these conflicts." In 2025, with both the Provincial and Federal Elections,
They Walked These Streets welcomed the involvement of MPP Alexa Gilmour and Member of Parliament and Deputy Minister of Industry Karim Bardessy. Both political representatives participated in community events, provided wreaths for our displays, and highlighted the value of our military service acknowledgment to the community's collective acts of remembrance throughout the year, not just on Remembrance Day. MPP Alexa Gilmour acknowledged They Walked These Streets in a member's statement at Queen's Park on November 6th, 2025, stating: "In the halls of Humberside Collegiate is a plaque where I trace my fingers and find Stewart Foster, a great-uncle I never met, who died in World War I, leaving an ache in the heart of my great-grandmother. Today, stories like his live on through They Walked These Streets, a remarkable project started by Katy Whitfield and Ian Da Silva. Using military records, photographs, and archives, they’ve restored the names and faces of our local soldiers, connecting them to homes, streets, churches, and schools right in our neighbourhood. ...Speaker, I wish my grandfathers from World War II were still alive today, because they would remind us that peace is never permanent; it must be upheld with every decision we make. This year, I want to thank all those who participated: Runnymede United, St. Olave’s Anglican, Annette Library, St. Paul’s, St. Martin-in-the-Fields, Humbercrest United, Swansea Town Hall, Runnymede Presbyterian, Morningside-High Park Presbyterian, Dundas Roncesvalles Peace Garden. May we always remember and never forget." We are grateful for the ongoing support of our local government representatives. Below, you can view the videos of these statements from the House of Commons and Queen's Park and read the transcripts from the Hansard, which provide the full text of their statements. We are truly humbled by these acknowledgments and parliamentary recognition of local history in our spaces of governance.
