Thousands in capital attend Remembrance Day services From O Canada to the Last Post, a ceremony of sombre reflection and strong emotion unites a crowd of all ages
Thousands gathered at the cenotaph at the B.C. legislature in Victoria for Remembrance Day ceremonies Wednesday.
It was one of several services held around the capital region.
On a day often made more sombre by rain and clouds, those who came to honour veterans were bathed in sunshine. Strong winds saw a Canadian flag over the cenotaph flapping wildly.
B.C. NDP MLA Carole James shed tears for her grandfather during the vigil. “Every Remembrance Day, I think, everyone gets emotional,” James said.
“For me, I think about my grandfather who passed away about 12 years ago. We didn’t find out about any of his war experience until after he passed away. Like many men of that generation, he never talked to the family about it.”
Instead, her grandfather confided in a physiotherapist at his retirement home who was originally from the same part of England. After James’s grandfather died, his physiotherapist shared his stories with his family.
“He struggled a bit with depression and I think it had a lot to do with him being a prisoner of war,” James said.
She became emotional thinking of him and all the soldiers who suffer psychological wounds, such as post-traumatic stress disorder, after their service.
James pointed to the newly released report of the Canadian military’s surgeon-general on suicide in the Armed Forces. “We have to treat our veterans better; this is a reminder today,” James said.
The Remembrance Day crowd included young and old, seniors barely able to walk and children who rode their parents’ shoulders.
Suzette Goldsworthy held tight her blanketed two-month-old son, Ciaran, during the ceremony. Three-year-old daughter Amelie was also in tow.
Goldsworthy, a former servicewoman from New Zealand who has become a Canadian citizen, said both her grandfathers fought in the Second World War.
“I want my children to learn and respect and grow, remembering the sacrifices made before them, and that are still being made, to live the lives we get to live here in Canada and in the rest of the world,” Goldsworthy said.
Lt.-Gov. Judith Guichon arrived at 10:55 a.m. and was met by Angus Stanfield, immediate past-president of the Royal Canadian Legion, B.C./Yukon Command.
O Canada was played, followed by the Last Post.
Two minutes of silence were observed at 11 a.m.
A gun salute conducted by the 5th B.C. Field Regiment, Royal Canadian Artillery, punctuated each
special moment in the ceremony.
After the silence, master of ceremonies Len Reid quoted the Laurence Binyon poem For the
Fallen: “They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old. Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun, and in the morning, we will remember them.”
O God, Our Help in Ages Past was sung followed by a prayer led by Legion Padre Rev. Canon Andrew Gates.
Guichon laid the first wreath. The second was laid by Silver Cross mother Sheila Fynes, whose son Cpl. Stuart Langridge, committed suicide in 2008. She lingered at the cenotaph, her pain apparent.
After about three dozen groups and individuals had placed wreaths around the cenotaph and the ceremony officially concluded, crowds of people approached to pin their poppies to the wreaths.
OTTAWA — Canadians paused on Wednesday, as they do every year on Nov. 11, for a moment of reflection, but for those touched by war, like Master Cpl. Gary Barrett, every day is Remembrance Day.
For the veteran of the 1st Battalion, Royal Canadian Regiment, which saw some of the most intense fighting of the Afghan war in 2006 and 2010, the memory of fallen comrades is never far away and in some cases the dull ache has become part of the fabric daily life.
“A lot of us reflect every day,” said Barrett who now serves with regiment’s 3rd battalion.
“There are a lot of people I think about every day; friends that I’ve lost over there and I’m sure that there are other guys in the same boat who’ve lost friends and every day they have a thought — or a memory — in mind for a minute or two.”
It is a tangible, personal connection to war that fewer and fewer Canadians have, especially with the accelerating generational shift that’s seen an increasing number of Second World War and Korean veterans die.
It used to be that somebody’s brother, sister, father, mother, aunt or uncle served in one of those wars. But the ranks of stooped, old soldiers, some of them in wheelchairs piled high with blankets, were painfully thin this year during the annual march past the soaring National War Memorial.
The parade was filled out by slightly younger and slightly less grey peacekeeping veterans of the 1960s and 1970s in blue berets. It’s been like that for the last few years but was far more pronounced this chilly November morning.
Many of the men who fought Hitler’s armies are in their mid90s.
Across Canada, Canadians paused to reflect on Remembrance Day. In Vancouver, soldiers who committed suicide after facing the ravages of war were not forgotten.
In reading the prayer of remembrance, Rev. Jim Short recalled those who died at home and abroad, but also singled out those who came home injured.
“May we faithfully embrace the sacred task of care for those who have been wounded in war, in mind, body or spirit. And to especially embrace the loved ones of those who have taken their own lives in or after their military service.”
It was the first Remembrance Day for Trudeau as prime minister. He and his wife, Sophie Grégoire-Trudeau, greeted Sheila Anderson, this year’s Silver Cross mother representing all mothers who have lost children in military service, at the national service.
Anderson leaned on a cane as she placed her wreath.
Her son, Cpl. Jordan Anderson, was killed by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan in July 2007.
In a statement, Trudeau paid tribute to generations of sacrifice. “Members of our Armed Forces — past and present — routinely put their lives on the line for our country,” he said. “They represent the very best of what it means to be Canadian.”
In Edmonton, it was standingroom only at the University of Alberta’s Butterdome sports facility.
“This year marks some significant milestones for our nation,” Lt.-Gov. Lois Mitchell told the audience. “It was 100 years ago, in the spring of 1915, the Canadian troops experienced the true horror of the First World War and our nation’s first, full engagement in the battles of Flanders Field.”