Can Legions survive? Goodwill is not enough

I once joined the Legion in SteAnne-de-Bellevue.

But as with the church I grew up in, I lapsed. Nevertheless, there were some very memorable times in what must be the most beautiful Legion in Quebec.

The Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue Legion was a powerful social institution even as late as the 1990s when I first ran for mayor. I had a lot of Legionnaires on the electoral list living in my immediate area. Added to which I was then visiting the Veterans Hospital with two groups of students and spending a lot of time with Second World War and Korean War veterans in the last years of their lives. And I had several very good veteran friends who were still active in the Legion.

It was like hanging out with my parents’ friends and contemporaries. And they had all served in England. And, yes, there were a handful of heroes to admire.

Our Legion was very active, but by the turn of the century the active veteran population was seriously declining. I used to dread going into the Veterans Hospital in case one of my veterans had died. And that started happening frequently.

I’d still be a Legion member but I haven’t been back in our beautiful lakeside hall for years, so I never got to pay my $55 annual fees. I must owe 10 years by now.

When I joined, back in the ’90s, to be a member you were supposed to have served in the Forces or at least have a close relative who had served. I was a drummer in the Combined Cadet Force at school, but there was no obligatory military service in England by the time the baby boomers hit the streets. My two Irish uncles had served as medical officers during the war in the RAF. One of them was a hero, captured by the Japanese, imprisoned in Java for two years and awarded an OBE for his bravery.

My father worked at the Jewish Hospital in Manchester, but didn’t serve in the Forces: he was rejected because he was asthmatic. However, I found among his papers a discharge form from the Irish Free State Reserve after 183 days and I submitted it with my application. It was very generously accepted as evidence of a military streak in my family and I was inducted as an associate Legion member.

I was proud to be a Legionnaire. I still am, even if I owe 10 years’ dues.

Money was always a problem for our Legion. It had a ‘club’ licence, which restricted alcohol sales to signed-in members only, but annual dues and the bar didn’t pay taxes on the building. There was always talk of money problems. Eventually, the Legion found a solution — slot machines

— and applied to the town for a bar permit to allow them to install their own slot machines. I was on council at that time and council was very sensitive to the issue of another public bar in that area on the edge of a very sensitive and active residential part of town. Added to which there was a tavern across the street, whose owner I had beaten in the 1994 election by 10 votes. He wanted to upgrade its permit to bar to allow it to stay open until 4 in the morning.

A compromise was worked out, including an agreement signed by the tavern owner to close at an earlier hour, and the Legion installed its slot machines and Legionnaires emptied their pockets into the illusions they offered. Money problems persisted and the Legion really needed to get tax-free status. Unfortunately, the presence of the slot machines was used as an argument against the Legion when it applied for nontax status. Which left a large town tax bill to be paid every year.

Back in the first decade of this century, the town started negotiating with the Legion to gradually acquire the Legion hall with a view to turning it into a public space. Our objective was to try to avoid the sale of the building (and its bar licence) to new owners who would be less than sensitive to the surrounding area.

But it takes more than a vague goodwill to change an institution like the Legion, which was set up to serve as a military refuge. Even if a Legion is technically a bar open by law to all citizens, a Legion is a veteran space, a refuge for some, a bunkhouse, a quiet or rowdy space for people who’ve served in the forces and their families and friends, for men (and women) who’ve shared foxholes.

Is there another model for our Legions?