The Katyn Monument in Canada, unveiled in 1980, is the first monument in the world dedicated to the memory of the victims of the Soviet genocide to be erected in a public place on a small square in the city of Toronto.

Thirty-six years after the Katyn war crime, perpetrated by Soviet assassins on Stalin's orders, a resolution to erect a Katyn Monument dedicated to the memory of the victims of this unimaginable genocide was passed at the XXIII General Assembly of the Canadian Polish Congress, which met from 12 to 16 October 1974 in St Catharines.

One of the most resilient initiators of the construction was Tadeusz Kazimierz Walkowski; a colonel in the Controller Corps of the Polish Army, formerly an officer in the 14th Cavalry Regiment in Lviv, where he had graduated from the Higher School of Foreign Trade. His brother Władysław was killed in Katyn. Col Walkowski died in Edmonton and is buried in Holy Cross Cemetery.

A Committee for the Construction of the Katyn Monument in Canada was established to implement the project. It was headed by Lucjan Conrad, who played a major role in the struggle around obtaining permission to erect the monument in a prominent position in Toronto, so that it would become part of the landscape of that city. A design competition was also launched and 52 entries were received. Of the 'best of the best', the concept of Prof. Arch. Tadeusz Marian Janowski, a graduate of the Faculty of Architecture at the AGH University of Science and Technology in Krakow, who had lived in exile since the 1960s. In the USA, he was a lecturer at Iowa State University in Ames, later at the University of Winnipeg and again at the USA University in Syracuse.

As a result of the efforts of the Canadian Polish Congress, the Toronto City Council approved the project for construction on city-owned land. Despite the objections of several embassies including, most notably, the Soviet one, the Katyn Monument became the first in the world to be allowed to be erected in a public place, on a small square on the west side of the city where King Street West transitions into Roncesvalles Ave and Queen Street West into The Queensway.

Another kind gesture by the Canadian authorities was the enactment that any donations for its construction that were made to the 'Katyn Memorial Fund' were tax exempt.

The Committee for the Construction of the Katyn Memorial in Canada in its "Proclamation to the Polish Community" appealed: "Our aim is not only to honour the memory of the many Poles murdered by the Soviet authorities. The Katyn Monument is also intended to serve as a warning sign to living generations and to testify to their duty to defend human dignity and freedom against the brutal, cruel violence of hostile political forces. The lust for power, hatred and tyranny must not be allowed to violate our most precious moral values and respect for human life. W. State's donations will make it possible to realise the intention to erect the Monument. May your generosity for this purpose measure up to our grief at the violent loss of life on 'inhuman soil' by so many of our defenceless Compatriots and our contempt for this despicable crime."

The Katyn Monument, which was made free of charge by the Canadian firm Milne & Nicholls, was ceremonially unveiled on 14 September 1980. The unveiling ceremony was attended by Cardinal Wladyslaw Rubin, who had arrived from Rome, Stefan Soboniewski, president of the World Federation of the Polish Veterans Association, and Wladyslaw Gertler, president of the Canadian Polish Congress. More than 10,000 people attended the ceremonies, including representatives of all Polish-Canadian organisations in Canada with their banner stands. Representatives of the Hungarian, Lithuanian and Latvian ethnic groups were also present.

The unveiling of the monument was done by three people whose loved ones were murdered in the Katyn forest: J. Puchalik from Toronto, K. Ptaszynski from Montreal and M. Wiązek from Mississauga.

The monument is a black lump of rock torn by a large crack. On the sides of the block of the monument is an inscription in Polish and English: "To the memory of the 15,000 Polish prisoners of war who disappeared in 1940 from the camps at Kozelsk, Starobielsk and Ostashkov on the territory of the USSR. More than four thousand victims murdered by officers of the Soviet secret police were later discovered in mass graves at Katyn near Smolensk".

In the base of the monument to the memory of the victims of Katyn is embedded an urn with documents relating to its construction, together with the foundation act, which ends with the words "We commit the souls of the murdered to the protection of the Queen of the Polish Crown, Our Lady of Czestochowa, and may the memory of this crime remain forever in the hearts of the Polish Nation and the Polish community scattered throughout the globe".

The symbolism of this monument was very aptly assessed by one of the renowned Canadian curators of the renowned McMichael Canadian Art Collection, Anna Stanisz. On the ArtworxTO website she wrote: "A block cracked in half by a powerful blow. (...) This monument represents a very deep wound inflicted on the Polish nation. (...)This abstract form very strongly symbolises the unity that was shattered by the power of the crime. I think it is a very strong symbol. It is very minimalist, but there is a certain roughness to it. There's this contrast of the smoothness of the solid, this almost feeling that something so strong and so solid could fail. But it did, because the blow was so strong and the wound so deep. But what's interesting, if you think about it, I think there's also hope there. And that's what I like about this memorial, because the very fact that this memorial exists at all is already hope. And then you can feel that this block is not completely broken. At the very bottom is the part that holds it together, and there is a place from which to start rebuilding it."

For the Canadian Polish community, the Katyn Monument is a meeting place for various national holidays, and there is always an annual ceremony in April on Katyn Victims' Remembrance Day to honour those who were murdered.