2025 Canadian Tulip Festival: 80 Years of Dutch Liberation

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2025/05/07

The 2025 Canadian Tulip Festival blooms in Ottawa’s Commissioners Park from May 9–19, commemorating the 80th anniversary of the Liberation of the Netherlands. Co‑hosted by the Canadian Army, the free event showcases more than 300,000 tulips, themed walking tours, outdoor films, family activities, and Canada’s first hybrid drone‑and‑fireworks finale. The Official Opening Ceremony on Saturday, May 10 at 10:30 a.m. honours Second World War veterans, notably Honourary Lieutenant‑General Richard Rohmer, with military bands, a Remembrance Torch and a CF‑18 flypast. Princess Margriet’s envoy, Her Excellency Margriet Vonno, represents the Netherlands, underscoring the enduring Dutch‑Canadian friendship symbolized by the annual tulip gift. 

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Today, we will discuss the 2025 Canadian Tulip Festival, which runs until May 19 in Ottawa. This year’s Festival commemorates 80 years since the Liberation of the Netherlands during the Second World War and is co-hosted by the Canadian Army.

The festival honours Second World War veterans, including Canada’s most decorated living veteran, Honourary Lieutenant-General Richard Rohmer. Princess Margriet of the Netherlands, born in Ottawa during the war, had to cancel her visit due to health reasons, but Her Excellency Margriet Vonno, the new Dutch Ambassador to Canada, will represent the Netherlands. Highlights include over 300,000 blooming tulips, a Victory Party, Canada’s first hybrid drone and fireworks show, themed tours, outdoor films, and family-friendly activities. Admission is free, and guided tours are available for $20 per person. The full Festival is May 9–19, but the Opening Ceremony is on Saturday, May 10, at 10:30 a.m. at Commissioners Park.

What does the Canadian Tulip Festival mean for Canadians for the 80th anniversary of the Liberation of the Netherlands? And what do the liberation and the tulip symbolize for Dutch Canadians?

Jo Riding: What we like to say is: what the poppy is to autumn and the First World War, the tulip is to spring and the Second World War. It’s very much a symbol of the sacrifice of over 7,600 Canadian soldiers, many of them young men, who gave their lives in the liberation of the Netherlands between 1944 and 1945.

Princess Juliana of the Netherlands sent the original tulip gift in the fall of 1945, shortly after her return from exile in Canada. She had lived in Ottawa from 1940 to 1945 with her two daughters—and later gave birth to a third, Princess Margriet, in January 1943 at the Civic Hospital in Ottawa. Canada temporarily declared the hospital room extraterritorial to ensure her child had only Dutch citizenship.

As an expression of gratitude, Princess Juliana sent 100,000 tulip bulbs to Canada and promised an annual gift. This has continued every year since—10,000 bulbs from the Dutch royal family and 20,000 from the Dutch Bulb Growers Association, totalling 30,000 bulbs annually to this day. That annual gesture is such a powerful symbol of friendship.

Canada and the Netherlands have developed a deep, enduring friendship rooted in these wartime ties. There are about 1 million people of Dutch descent in Canada, many descendants of Dutch war brides who fell in love with Canadian soldiers during the liberation and immigrated to Canada after the war, often landing in Halifax and then travelling across the country by train.

And the stories go both ways, right? Canada left a legacy in the Netherlands, too? It’s estimated that between 4,000 and 7,000 “liberation children”—children fathered by Canadian soldiers—were born in the Netherlands after the war. Many were raised by single Dutch mothers in postwar Europe, often under challenging circumstances. So when Canada liberated the Netherlands, our soldiers became heroes of a nation and symbols of hope and new beginnings. For many Dutch women, Canada represented a future free from war and hardship—a land where they could start over, raise families, and build lives with the men who helped liberate their homeland.

Jacobsen: The story has many layers, including mixed reactions from those who lived it. On the other hand, after about a year of Canadian presence, the Dutchmen said things like, “Please liberate us from our liberators.” It was difficult for them to compete with the young, healthy Canadians from the West, especially compared to the war-weary and undernourished Dutch population at the time.

Canada played a very special role—not only in the liberation but in the post-war rebuilding. We stayed on longer than any other Allied force to help with reconstruction. We were also key players in the Battle of the Scheldt, a major offensive that cleared access to the Port of Antwerp, critical for moving supplies inland to Allied forces.

To this day, I meet people in the park who are connected to every facet of the story. Some are children who received food from Canadian air drops during Operation Manna—the most significant humanitarian effort of the war. Others are descendants of the Dutch resistance or, like myself, descendants of Canadian liberators.

My grandfather, George Riding, fought in the Battle of the Scheldt. I’ve met war brides, veterans, and families from all sides of this history. What is truly remarkable is that the Dutch do not forget.

In the Netherlands, people know the names of our soldiers. They name parks, schools, and streets after them. Here in Canada, we often struggle to recall their names. That’s why our work is essential—especially as the generations change—to remember these stories and sacrifices.

This Festival is about more than tulips. It’s a commemorative celebration of sacrifice, friendship, and the enduring importance of international cooperation.

Jacobsen: How is the coordination with the Canadian Army going this year as co-hosts?

Riding: We’re thrilled to be co-hosting with the Canadian Army. Major-General J.W. Errington will join me as co-host for the opening ceremony. The Canadian Armed Forces Central Band will lead our parade, and we will open with the Canadian Remembrance Torch, carried by Army Cadets. That symbolic passing of the torch from one generation to the next is very powerful.

We will also have a cannon salute and anticipate a CF-18 flypast to open the Festival with honour and energy. The Army will have an information booth onsite, where visitors can learn about the modern Canadian Armed Forces, career opportunities, and community engagement.

They will also be part of our grand finale, which features Canada’s first hybrid drone and a fireworks show centred on liberation.

Last year, we partnered with the Royal Canadian Air Force to celebrate their 100th anniversary and tell the story of Operation Manna, where Canadian bombers dropped food to starving Dutch civilians.

The year before that, we marked 100 years of the Naval Reserve—Canada’s citizen sailors—and told the story of the Battle of the Atlantic, the most extended continuous battle of any war, not just WWII. It ran from the first day of the war to the last.

This year, we are highlighting the stories of several Second World War veterans, focusing on Honorary Lieutenant-General Richard Rohmer, Canada’s most decorated living veteran. We’ve adapted his memoirs into a script for our Tulip Legacy Walking Tour, which adds a personal and theatrical dimension to our storytelling.

Jacobsen: And you’ll also meet a few other characters—folks who returned from the war and one who lived right beside the festival site but, sadly, did not make it back. Why are those individual stories important to the Festival’s message?

Riding: We tell these poignant stories because we want people to see the tulips the way we do—as a living tribute. Each bloom represents someone’s brother, father, husband, or son. It’s essential to frame remembrance that way—to give the numbers a human face.

Jacobsen: Can you elaborate a little on the Tulip Legacy Walking Tour?

Riding: We typically run the Tulip Legacy Walking Tour each year, but we’ve created a special Liberation 80 Edition this time. It’s a theatrical experience. The tour is set in 1946, the first spring after the war, when the tulips bloomed in Commissioners Park for the very first time.

Your guide, dressed in period clothing, will explain the location’s historical significance and provide details about the varieties of tulips in the gardens. Along the way, you will meet characters based on real people.

One is a young Pilot Officer, Richard Rohmer, who was only 22 years old at the war’s end. At that point, he was already talking about retirement—though clearly, that didn’t stick. His postwar service is legendary.

The next character is my grandfather, George Riding, who fought in the Battle of the Scheldt and at the Leopold Canal. He served in the Royal Montreal Regiment’s machine gun unit. Grandpa George made it home, but he suffered from what was then called shell shock—what we now understand as PTSD—until he passed in 1980. He used to say it was his life’s best and worst times.

Finally, visitors meet Thomas Emmett Clark, a young man who lives beside the festival site. He grew up on Matapaska Avenue—you can see his childhood home from one tour stop. We read a letter from him. He was part of the First Canadian Army and died on April 16, 1945, just two weeks before the war ended.

This is very much grounded in the geography and memory of the neighbourhood itself. These stories come from a project called “A Neighbourhood Sacrifice,” which is still available on our website. It’s a digital mapping of The Glebe, the neighbourhood beside the Festival. Are you familiar with Ottawa?

So, to Torontonians—where I’m from—I compare it to The Annex. It’s one of those older residential neighbourhoods with century-old houses, tree-lined streets, and deep community roots.

In The Glebe alone, 473 young men enlisted and didn’t come back. Can you imagine the emotional tension in a neighbourhood like that? If someone received mail, you didn’t even want to ask what it was. People were walking on eggshells—not knowing who had just lost someone or who was about to. And if that happened in just one neighbourhood, imagine what the rest of the country felt.

That kind of granular storytelling relieves the historical sacrifice—that’s the goal. When you say, “7,600 Canadians died liberating the Netherlands,” it’s abstract. But when you say, “Thomas Emmett Clark, from that house right there, died two weeks before the war ended,” it becomes intensely personal. It brings humanity and immediacy to remembrance—and that’s essential.

Jacobsen: On the media side as well, it’s powerful. Giving someone a name and a face changes the narrative from statistics to story.

Riding: That’s the whole point. These are big numbers we talk about. It’s easy to let it roll off the tongue—”Oh, we lost a thousand here and a thousand there.” But when you stop to think about it, each one of those people left behind families, friends, and communities. The ripple effect—the circle of grief—widens dramatically.

There isn’t any one of us who doesn’t feel the impact, even now, nearly eighty years later, of what the Nazis inflicted on the world. And yet, in the broader sweep of history, eighty years of largely sustained peace—especially in Europe—is extremely rare.

Jacobsen: That’s true. The only historical comparison that comes to mind is Pax Romana, the Roman Peace. But of course, that was only because Rome conquered and controlled everything, so there wasn’t anyone left to fight. The last time the world had such a universal cease in major conflict—at least in recorded history—was around 50 BC, during the height of Roman power. But that was more of a peace through domination than anything else.

That raises interesting questions about how we frame Peace. People often talk about the just war theory, which is valid and, by extension, unjust war as well. But very few talk about just Peace or unjust Peace. A peace imposed by an empire—like Rome’s—can be seen as unfair because it lacked freedom or autonomy.

Canada, on the other hand, doesn’t dominate the world. We’re a nation in good standing, trying to uphold peace and partnership on the world stage. That makes our current peace just as it gets—not through conquest but cooperation.

Riding: That’s a great way to frame it. And the Dutch-Canadian relationship is a perfect example of that respectful, reciprocal peace. The Dutch have shown their gratitude in incredible ways over the years.

Jacobsen: Especially on the West Coast, you’ll notice many agricultural and horticultural businesses with names like “Van Something.” Many Dutch immigrants brought their skills and innovation with them after the war. They made enormous contributions to Canada’s farming and greenhouse sectors.

Riding: Yes, they did. The Netherlands is one of the most agriculturally efficient countries on Earth. They feed a considerable portion of Europe and do it with just 3% of Canada’s land. They pioneered vertical farming, and their accomplishments in sustainable agriculture are astonishing.

When you compare that to what we’re doing here, you realize how much land we’re underutilizing or wasting. So, those transatlantic partnerships—they’re not just symbolic. They’re still economically and technologically relevant. We do make excellent partners, both historically and today.

Jacobsen: I’m smiling hearing all this—it’s music to my ears. I’m Dutch-Canadian, so it hits home for me.

Riding: That’s wonderful to hear. It’s so meaningful to meet people with that shared heritage on both sides. I visited the Netherlands this past October for the World Tulip Summit. It’s where all the tulip festivals from around the world come together to share ideas and celebrate our shared floral history.

Jacobsen: You recently visited the Netherlands. Were you able to explore any of the commemorative sites while there?

Riding: I did, yes. I visited Princess Margriet in the royal city of Apeldoorn while there because how often do I get to go over it? And in Ottawa, there’s a statue called “The Man with Two Hats.” Many people don’t know that in Apeldoorn, there’s an identical statue—also called “The Man with Two Hats.”

They face each other across the ocean. Our version is in Ottawa, and theirs is in Apeldoorn. The statues are symbolic, representing friendship, gratitude, and shared history.

Before I left Apeldoorn, I told my driver, “I want to go see the statue here before we leave.” When we arrived, flowers covered the ground—within 10 feet all around the monument. Still, after all these years, it gave me chills.

And while I was standing there asking my driver to take a photo, an older man came over—he was 95 years old. He had been there when the Canadians liberated the city. He asked my driver what I was doing, and when he found out who I was and that I was Canadian, he burst into tears. He came up to hug me and said how grateful he was to finally thank a Canadian in person for freeing his city. He told me he visits the statue every single day.

Jacobsen: That’s incredibly moving. And here in Ottawa?

Riding: Most people don’t even know the statue exists in Ottawa. In the Netherlands, it’s adorned with flowers and daily visitors. It’s a different experience. Canadians were never occupied. We don’t know what it’s like to have bloodshed in our streets the way they did.

While I was there, I also visited the Anne Frank House. The house itself was emotional, of course. But what struck me even more was outside, looking at the pavement stones—realizing those are the same stones that were there during the occupation. That’s where people walked. That’s where some were asked to kneel before being shot. That’s where people died.

It’s no wonder the Dutch have a profound reverence for what Canada did. Their feeling toward us is rooted in lived experience and national trauma. Canadians, by contrast, are often self-effacing, modest, and unaware of the full extent of our role.

Jacobsen: Much of the global media focuses on the American narrative, right?

Riding: Yes. The Americans did a far better publicizing their efforts, primarily through Hollywood. That has shaped public consciousness. Many Canadians still don’t know what we did for the Dutch.

Even when The Forgotten Battle movie came out, I was excited. I thought, “Finally, a film about us!”—about Canadian soldiers at the Battle of the Scheldt. But it was still told through a very American lens. So, our veterans and national efforts often remain underappreciated at home and abroad.

Jacobsen: Let’s switch gears a bit—what do you think about the hybrid drone-fireworks show? That’s a significant innovation this year.

Riding: I am so stoked! Seriously. This is my seventh edition of the Festival, and we’ve experimented with many different things.

In my first year, we had traditional fireworks tied to our Victoria Day celebrations. Then came COVID, and we spent two years doing everything virtually. That meant no outdoor shows, but we had much fun with online storytelling, digital exhibits, and virtual tulip experiences. Still, nothing beats that in-person moment of communal awe.

Now, with this year’s hybrid drone and fireworks show, we’re stepping into the future of commemorative celebration. It’s modern, more environmentally friendly, and thematically rich. The show tells a story of liberation through coordinated lights, sound, and sky choreography.

Jacobsen: In 2022, fireworks returned at the Festival after COVID but weren’t without criticism. What changes have you made since then?

Riding: Yes, in 2022, we brought back traditional fireworks and received a fair bit of pushback from the community. Concerns were raised about ecological impact and noise pollution, especially for people with PTSD—and animals too. I mean, I had to go home and apologize to my dog! She was hiding in the basement when I got back from the show.

So, in 2024, we paused and did a complete drone show. The response was mixed. Some people loved it—they appreciated the quiet, the storytelling, and the lower environmental impact. Others felt it was just a light in the sky—they missed the drama and the big boom of fireworks.

Drone shows also have limitations. To get the full visual effect, you must be within about 80 degrees of the viewing angle. Fireworks, by contrast, can be seen 360 degrees—look up.

So, this year, we worked with our pyrotechnics and drone suppliers to find a solution. We’ve come up with a hybrid show. This format allows us to keep the drama of fireworks while limiting the volume and duration to reduce noise and ecological pollution. The drone portion will enable us to tell a story—in this case, the story of the Liberation of the Netherlands—through coordinated lights and choreography.

We know we can’t please everyone, but we’re hopeful this hybrid solution will strike the right balance. It starts with fireworks, moves into a narrative-driven drone show, and finishes with a final fireworks celebration.

Jacobsen: That sounds like a thoughtful solution. Now, I heard there’s something called Pilates in Petals.

Riding: Yes! We’ve got Pilates in Petals and also a Fun Run. We know the mental health benefits of being in a garden are huge. Combine that with physical movement in a wide-open space, and you have a recipe for real stress relief.

A little guided stretching or a light-hearted jog can do wonders in these anxious times. That’s what this is about—joyful, accessible well-being in the middle of natural beauty. We see tens of thousands of smiling faces in the park each year, so it made sense to deepen that connection.

Jacobsen: What else is new this year?

Riding: We’ve got our brand new Big Bug Boardwalk!

Jacobsen: What is that?

Riding: It is a whimsical evolution of a project we first did in 2022 called the Blacklight Boardwalk. Here’s how it started: We were photographing tulips one evening, and I happened to have some blacklight gear with me. We noticed that pollen inside a tulip glows under UV light. That led us down a rabbit hole—pollinators like bees and butterflies see in the UV spectrum, and the glowing pollen is how they find their way from flower to flower.

Jacobsen: That is genuinely fascinating.

Riding: Right? So we thought—why not let humans see that, too? We installed UV blacklights along an 800-meter Dow’s Lake boardwalk stretch beside Commissioners Park. We raised about 2,000–3,000 tulips, illuminated them, and added educational signage about pollinators, bee safety, and why we should all be nicer to the bees. They’re just trying to do their jobs!

The boardwalk experience became incredibly popular, and we ran it in 2022, 2023, and 2024. But I like to refresh installations every three years, and we’re introducing the Big Bug Board this year. It keeps the glowing garden concept but adds more whimsy and interactivity—especially for families.

You can expect giant bees, butterflies, ladybugs, and interactive leaves along the Big Bug Boardwalk. And once again, we’ll have a bilingual soundtrack that explains what you’re seeing and why pollinators matter.

We believe in passive education through entertainment—you’re having a great time, enjoying a beautiful visual experience, and leaving having learned something. That’s the goal.

This is essentially a ramped-up, whimsical version of our Blacklight Boardwalk—with big, glowing bugs! It’s going to be a lot of fun. It got a great reception at the World Tulip Summit. It was very popular. I had several countries ask if they could borrow or replicate the idea. And I said, Of course you can! I suspect we’ll see UV gardens popping up in festivals worldwide. That’s always exciting—to see something you created become a global trend.

Jacobsen: Is there anything else you’d like to include? A favourite quote or key message you return to?

Riding: Definitely. One quote I always return to comes from Malak Karsh, the renowned photographer and founder of the Festival. He said, “The tulips brought colour back to a very grey world after the war.” That is still relevant. We deeply understood that message when we took over the Festival during the COVID year. No matter what’s happening—a pandemic, a trade war, hyperinflation, or worse—the tulips still come. They reliably and beautifully bring colour and joy to the world.

I often say there are three things you can count on: death, taxes, and tulips.

They are incredibly resilient flowers. They originated as wildflowers in the Himalayan Mountains, so they know adversity. They survive harsh Canadian winters and thrive through humid summers, which is what makes them such powerful symbols.

You plant them in the fall. You hope for the best. And then, come spring, no matter the weather—they rise. Nothing stops a tulip from doing what it was meant to: bloom. People worry every late spring, early spring, warm or cold spell. But you don’t have to. Tulips always come back.

Jacobsen: That’s a beautiful metaphor—and a comforting one.

Riding: Thank you. One of the messages we try to get across is that we’re not the city, the National Capital Commission, or Canadian Heritage. We’re none of those. We are a small charity doing a tremendous job. The National Capital Commission (NCC) plants the tulips. We celebrate them.

The Festival’s role is to provide the commemoration, storytelling, and infrastructure to safely welcome nearly half a million visitors. The NCC has been planting and maintaining these tulips for 80 years.

There’s even a great story: when the first tulips arrived, the NCC wanted to plant them on Parliament Hill. But Prime Minister Mackenzie King objected. He felt tulips wouldn’t suit the Gothic architecture and the Victorian garden style of the Hill.

The NCC went ahead and planted them anyway. And when they bloomed? He loved them. He was so taken with their beauty, he ordered they be planted every year thereafter.

We thank the NCC for maintaining this incredible legacy and are proud to work so closely with them to present this national story of sacrifice, friendship, and renewal every year.

Jacobsen: Jo, thank you very much for your time today. It was an absolute pleasure to discuss the Festival with you.

Riding: The pleasure was all mine—thank you! Now I’m off back to Merchandiseville.

Jacobsen: Enjoy your next thousand tulips!

Riding: [Laughing] Keep counting!

Jacobsen: Okay. Thank you. Bye.

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