Lest we forget: The importance of recognizing Remembrance Day

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“In Flanders Fields the poppies blow. Between the crosses, row on row. That mark our place; and in the sky. The larks, still bravely singing, fly. Scarce heard amid the guns below….” 

“In Flanders Fields,” written by Canadian soldier John McCrae, was a poem first published in 1915 about the sacrifices of those fighting in the First World War. Today, the poem is used in many ceremonies to commemorate Remembrance Day, a day to honour members of Armed Forces who died serving Canada in war and ongoing conflicts. 

Since 1919, on the 11th day of the 11th month, otherwise known as Nov. 11, communities come together in ceremony to reflect on the importance of Remembrance Day, honouring those who lost their lives and fought for the freedom we have in our country today. At 11:00 am, a two-minute silence takes place to remember the soldiers, but also to pay respect to the veterans for their service in the First and Second World Wars, the Korean War, the Afghanistan conflict, and others. 

Numerous ceremonies take place around the Lower Mainland including Surrey, Richmond, and Vancouver to honour military personnel and those who have fought for our freedom and rights.

Cloverdale is home to one of the biggest ceremonies in Metro Vancouver, one that Yvon Lehoux is proud to organize and take part in. 

Lehoux has been the sergeant-of-arms for the Cloverdale Legion since last year, and one of his roles is to organize the Remembrance Day parade and ceremony. He served in the Royal Canadian Navy for 30 years, starting 1975 and retiring in 2006 at the rank of chief petty officer second class. Due to Lehoux’s experience, he was asked to become the sergeant-at-arms for the Cloverdale Legion and he gladly accepted. 

The Cloverdale Remembrance Day ceremony will be held at Veterans Square and will begin with a procession at 10:00 am and a service at the Cloverdale Cenotaph at 10:25 am. Lehoux expects around 7,000 people to attend this year’s ceremony. 

The ceremony starts with a parade that assembles on 176A St. heading to 56A Ave and onwards to 58th Ave where the Cloverdale Legion colour party will lead, following veterans, RCMP officers, the RCMP E Division Pipe Band, and the Surrey Police Service, Lehoux says. Firefighters, reserve militia units, and army, navy, and air force cadets are also a part of the parade. Lehoux says once people assemble around the cenotaph and are in place, a choir from the United Church will join them, followed by the master of ceremony conducting the event. 

Shortly after, the national anthem will be sung with the Girl Guides, followed by statements from the Legion president, and welcoming the VIPs to the ceremony. Surrey Mayor Brenda Locke, MP for Cloverdale-Langley City John Aldag, and MLA for Surrey-Cloverdale Mike Starchuk are some of the people attending the ceremony, Lehoux says. There will also be bleachers for people who attend the event.

Silver Cross Mother Sian Lesueur will also attend the ceremony and lay a wreath in honour of her son Garrett Chidley, who was lost during the war in Afghanistan in 2009, and on behalf of all the silver cross mothers in the country. The silver cross mother is someone who is chosen by a Legion or the federal government to lay a wreath and stand on behalf of mothers who have lost children in service of their country. 

The bugler will sound the tune of “Last Post,” a song that carries the meaning of a soldier who has gone to final rest. Then the flag will be lowered for the Lament, also known as two-minutes of silence at 11:00 am, and wartime airplanes will take off in the sky from the Langley airport. The ceremony will end with closing statements and a prayer. The public will be invited back to the Cloverdale Legion at 17567 57th Ave for refreshments. For those who can’t attend in-person, the ceremony will be live streamed from the Heritage Surrey Facebook page. 

“This is only a small sacrifice to attend a Remembrance Day ceremony, everyone should go there and reflect … because this is the day of reflection on how lucky we are as Canadians to live in a free country,” Lehoux says. 

“It also gives us the opportunity to convey our respect and to the Canadian who paid the ultimate price.” 

For Matthew McBride, Remembrance Day is about the military personnel who served our country, but also about the sacrifices of families who never saw combat. 

“It’s much more than just old soldiers and fields long ago, but the descendants of people whose families have literally lost their breadwinner, father, husband, and how difficult the life that would have been to carry on without that,” McBride says. 

McBride has been the master of ceremonies for Remembrance Day in the City of Richmond for 13 years. Every year since 1923, the city has put on a parade and ceremony to commemorate Remembrance Day. McBride’s role is to organize and guide the ceremony from start to finish. 

“What I get out of this is that I’m keeping something alive that I believe is very important,” he says. 

Richmond’s Remembrance Day ceremony will begin with a parade along Granville St. and No. 3 Rd. at 10:20 am and will include units of veterans, members of the Royal Canadian Legion and Army, Richmond’s permanent Canadian Forces Unit 39 Service Battalion, cadet organizations, and people from public safety agencies. 

The ceremony will begin at the cenotaph near Richmond City Hall at 10:40 am and end at 11:30 am with a reception. 

McBride says the ceremony also includes a prayer or spiritual component, with the Palmer Choir performing “In Flanders Fields,” sharing a story of one of the individuals on the cenotaph each year, and formal wreath laying. 

Remembrance Day holds a personal connection to McBride as he worked in the Navy, but also carries a military family history.  

“I come from a direct line of serving military personnel. [Both] my great grandfathers and my grandfather all fought, sort of simultaneously without knowing each other, in France during the First World War,” McBride says. 

“My father served in the Korean War, my oldest brother served as a peacekeeper in Vietnam, and I served in the Canadian military after that. So for me, there’s a direct connection to the military aspect of remembrance.” 

McBride is also the chair of the Richmond Poppy Fund, an agency that collects money for the benefit of veterans and their families. His role is to distribute poppies to 130 locations in the city. He says 26,000 poppies are distributed to schools every year. 

The red poppy carries a symbol of remembrance that is worn on the left lapel, close to the heart, to recognize and acknowledge the sacrifice of soldiers in war, according to the Canadian War Museum. It was also adopted as a symbol for remembrance by The Great War Veterans’ Association in 1921. Poppies were originally created by disabled veterans with “the proceeds of sales” going towards veterans’ needs. 

People can buy a poppy between now and Nov. 11 at a number of businesses and stores such as London Drugs, Real Canadian Superstore, and Tim Hortons. Kwantlen Polytechnic University students are also able to pick up a poppy by donation from Kwantlen Student Association offices and Grassroots Cafe at the Surrey campus. 

“It’s not [just] buying a poppy, it’s donating to the poppy fund, and that fund supports veterans and their immediate relatives …. A lot of veterans need assistance, a lot of them are suffering to make ends meet, so by donating to the poppy fund, it’s remembering them,” says Robert Underhill, chair of the Remembrance Day committee for the City of Vancouver. 

“I think it’s important that everybody participates, but if they can’t participate, at least go so far as to wear a poppy in remembrance of those people.” 

The Vancouver Remembrance Day Committee is a civic volunteer group composed of citizens to develop the ceremony. The ceremony began in 1924 and is the second largest in Canada after Ottawa. Vancouver is the only city in Canada that has a civic volunteer committee supported by the city, according to the City of Vancouver’s website. 

As chair of the committee, Underhill is in charge of organizing Vancouver’s Remembrance Day ceremony held at Victory Square Cenotaph at 200 West Hastings St. between Cambie and Hamilton. The ceremony usually starts between 9:45 and 10:00 am and goes until about 11:30 am. He says he expects to see around 20,000 to 30,000 people this year to watch the ceremony. 

Underhill says the ceremony begins with the Vancouver Bach Choir and then the march of military units followed up by veterans singing “O’Canada.” The Vancouver ceremony also includes the singing of “Last Post” and “Lament,” along with a wreath-laying. Underhill says this year the choir will be singing the military version of “Hallelujah” by Sailor Jerri.  

“If we don’t remember our past, we’re condemned to repeat it. Especially with the strife that’s going on around the world right now, just remember this isn’t the thing to get into. This isn’t about war, this is remembering what the results in war is about,” Underhill says. 

Remembrance Day also commemorates the military personnel currently serving and veterans here today. Located on St. George St. in New Westminster is the Honour House, a place for Canadian Armed Forces, veterans, emergency services workers, and their families to stay while receiving medical care and treatment in the Lower Mainland for free. 

Executive Assistant Curt Appleby describes Honour House as a “home away from home,” the same motto on their website. 

“Because we’re located in a major city here in Greater Vancouver, we’re close to a lot of hospitals,” Appleby says. 

“We’re here for them while they go through their medical dealings, but not only for them for their families, so it’s a huge part of what we stress here, we take care of the entire family.” 

In Honour House, either military personnel or an emergency service worker completes a referral form that needs to be signed by a “referring agent,” such as a supervisor, in addition to a doctor’s note or email from a medical facility confirming dates of appointments for medical treatment. Once submitted, a member from Honour House will look at the application and let the applicant know if it has been approved. 

Once approved, the applicant can stay up to two weeks or longer if there are rooms available. Honour House has 11 bedrooms, each with their own bathroom. 

Appleby says Honour House tries to fill a gap in the system of helping military personnel, veterans, and emergency service workers. Honour House is one of the few organizations in Canada that offers people in these careers a free place to stay. The Honour House launched the Honour Ranch in 2019 in Ashcroft, a place where these workers can stay for the treatment of operational stress injuries such as anxiety, depression, and PTSD to empower them to better navigate these stresses from their service. 

“I think that peace of mind at the end of the day is exactly why we need a place like the Honour House society,” he says. 

“We deal so much here with operational stress. You might see somebody in front of you and have a totally fine conversation and not know that they’re pulling themselves apart in the mirror when they get home.” 

Appleby says talking to military personnel and veterans can go a long way. 

“Just talk to them, ask how they’re doing. If you can, just let them know that you’re there to support them,” he says.  

As a veteran, Lehoux says it’s important to commemorate Remembrance Day for the achievements they and others made to the country. 

“Many of us veterans, we live dealing with psychological and physical scars as we willingly put our lives in harm’s way. But as a result, we hold a deep and personal relationship to this monument,” Lehoux says. 

“When we look at the monument, and we go there once a year to revere the ones who passed on and to remember what was done, then we forget all our burdens. It makes us reflect on our achievements that we’ve done in serving our country with pride and honour.”