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Remembrance Day: National holiday?/"Veterans' Day"? (merged)

Remembrance Day should be a National Holiday?

  • Yes

    Votes: 80 61.1%
  • No

    Votes: 43 32.8%
  • Undecided

    Votes: 4 3.1%
  • Don't care

    Votes: 4 3.1%

  • Total voters
    131
Oldgateboatdriver said:
Personally, before we start mounting a campaign to change the holiday's name, I would rather we mount a campaign to make it a true national holiday rather than just a "federal" holiday observed in industries subject to federal jurisdiction only.

Remembrance Day has always been a statutory holiday in the municipal jurisdiction where I used to work.

i "if the employee does not work on the actual holiday, the employee shall be paid for a full day at his regular rate of pay.
( always 12 hour shifts where I worked )

ii "if the employee works on a designated holiday, the employee will be paid two (2) times his regular rate for time so worked and in addition shall either:
(A)
be paid for a full day at his regular rate of pay, or
(B)
be entitled, at the employee’s option, to a day in lieu with pay at a time to be mutually agreed upon between the employee and the supervisor."

 
"Remembrance Day" is a nice name because it covers many facets.  People can "remember" anything they like (although it becomes admittedly more difficult with age ;D).  So why change the name at all?  Why not just expand the definition of who we remember?  That way no stationary will be wasted and no calendars or websites will require amendment.
 
We should create three separate Days, each coexisting on November 11:  Royal Canadian Navy Remembrance Day, Canadian Army Remembrance Day, and Royal Canadian Air Force Remembrance Day....

OK, kidding.
 
What I don't agree with are those that feel since it is a stat holiday (in some jurisdictions) that if it falls on a weekend, they should be given the following Monday off in compensation.

When I heard a coworker at a former job complain because they were expected to show up on Monday when Remembrance Day fell on a Sunday, I asked them if the were planning to show their respect for those who died defending their right to complain on both Sunday and Monday.

Last I heard about not getting Monday off.
 
cupper said:
When I heard a coworker at a former job complain because they were expected to show up on Monday when Remembrance Day fell on a Sunday, I asked them if the were planning to show their respect for those who died defending their right to complain on both Sunday and Monday.

Last I heard about not getting Monday off.

Good comeback. Well said.
 
Oldgateboatdriver said:
hopefully leading to better attendance at the day's activities in the future.

Well, here the ceremony was very well attended. I am glad coffee shops were open because i had one to warm up before the ceremony (it was cold) and i am also glad the pubs were open so i could head there afterwards.

Oh, wait. We're cherry picking what shouldn't be open............ my mistake.
 
E.R. Campbell said:
You are correct. Remembrance Day is not about veterans; they started it and (through the Royal Canadian Legion) some veterans still manage it, but the only really important people at the ceremony are the Governor General (who represents all Canadians, including the ones who remember nothing and care less) and the Silver Cross Mother (who represents all those who grieve for individual losses). The veterans, sitting in chairs, carrying flags or marching about (marching be used loosely) are window dressing. I believe we should have a Veteran's Day - making a nice long weekend in, say, February. (I would say in May but that's too close to Victoria Day which is so anachronistic that we really must keep it.)


It's time for an annual rant, this time provoked by this article which tells us that some vets objected to Premier Marois wearing a fleur de lis in her poppy.

First: I'm going to jump to Mme. Marois' defence.

I know that the Royal Canadian Legion has considerable legal, proprietary and traditional interest in the poppy, and that their annual poppy campaign is the RCL's major fundraising campaign for its many worthy endeavours. I also know that many veterans hold the poppy in special regard ~ I observe here, in our Army.ca family, many members change their avatar to a poppy at about this time every year. I am a veteran; I am not a Legion member, nor to I visit a Legion branch on 11 Nov, nor do I march in the 11 Nov "veterans parade" even though I always, health permitting, attend the services; but I do have a personal interest in honouring our war dead.

Many people, soldiers and civilians alike use a little commemorative pin to hold their poppy in place. Mine is shown below. (Who can tell me what the pin is for?) I have heard and read complaints against this; I find them all unpersuasive. Despite the Legion's proprietary interest, the poppy, as a symbol of remembrance of our war dead, not of the service or sacrifice of living veterans, belongs to all of us. The fact that we wear it, period, is enough to satisfy the Legion's interests.

I don't know what went through Mme. Marois' mind when she used her little fleur de lis to pin her poppy to her jacket. Perhaps she smiled slyly and said, to herself, "that will show those maudits anglais" but it is equally likely that she thought about a faded family photograph of a relative who went off to war, maybe never to return, with a fleur de lis on his lapel or, perhaps, the image of a grieving Quebecois mother who had just lost a son in Afghanistan crossed her mind. I don't know, and I am 100% certain that none of the complaining vets do either, so I, at least, and the vets, I believe, owe Mme Marois the benefit of the doubt. I applaud Mme Marois for wearing her poppy; that's what a loose combination of custom, good political public relations, and good taste require of politicians. I don't believe that attacks on her were, in any way, warranted.

Second, and my main point: Remembrance Day. Remembrance Day, originally Armistice Day, was started by veterans with one specific aim: to remember their comrades who had been killed in battle. Except for the Americans, whose Civil War was, arguably, the first modern,mass war, we were strangers to the idea of the mass slaughter that characterized the campaigns in France and Flanders. The men and women who survived needed to stop, every so often, and contemplate what had happened and what they contemplated was:

For The Fallen

With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,
England mourns for her dead across the sea.
Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,
Fallen in the cause of the free.

Solemn the drums thrill; Death august and royal
Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres,
There is music in the midst of desolation
And a glory that shines upon our tears.


They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted;
They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years contemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.


They mingle not with their laughing comrades again;
They sit no more at familiar tables of home;
They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;
They sleep beyond England's foam.

But where our desires are and our hopes profound,
Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,
To the innermost heart of their own land they are known
As the stars are known to the Night;

As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain;
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end, they remain.


Laurence Binyon, 1914

That's what prompted the whole thing, and, even today, one stanza from that poem, two trumpet calls and one piped lament is, really, almost all there is to any Remembrance Day service; at the national level our Governor General, representing all of us in our grief for all who gave their lives, and the Silver Cross Mother, representing those who grieve, personally, for individuals, lay wreaths. All the rest: the inclusive prayers, the children singing John McCrae's iconic poem, the marching vets and everything else is window dressing. We gather for one, and only one reason, to pause for just two minutes and think about the human costs of war - in terms we can all understand, the death of a single man, but multiplied by dozens, hundreds, thousands and even tens of thousands. (In some respects I think Afghanistan, with one or two soldiers killed every few weeks, is easier to comprehend than the great battles of earlier wars when the casualty lists tallied dozens even hundreds of names and hometowns each day.)

So, please, wear your poppy in remembrance of our war dead - not our "glorious dead," there wasn't, ever, much glory - and, stop slagging Mme Marois for wearing hers. If you need some glory on Remembrance Day, consider, perhaps the text which is inscribed on the Memorial Arch which connects the East and West Veterans Memorial Building in Ottawa:

434491097_b1647c6fa8_z.jpg


All these were honoured in their generations, and were the glory of their times.
Ecclesiasticus 44:7



Thanks for reading.


Edit: typo
 
Remembrance Day in Canada dates from 1931 when Novemember 11th was chosen as the date to commemorate our war dead to conform to the rest of the British Commonwealth. Up to then the ceremony was in late May or early June and was known as Decoration Day. Its date was significant as it was close to the anniversary of the Battle of Ridgeway on June 2nd, 1866 when nine Canadians were killed or died of wounds fighting the Fenians. The battle was the first time that the Canadian Army, which had been created by the Militia Act of 1855, fought and the first time that Canadians fought under Canadian command with no British presence. Ridgeway was also the last time that Canadians died fighting on Canadian soil against a foreign invader.

It is perhaps an accident of history that these nine Canadians and the 31 that died of illness, injury or accident while called out to face the Fenian threat of 1866 are not included in the Books of Remembrance in the Peace Tower.
 
E.R. Campbell said:
It's time for an annual rant, this time provoked by this article which tells us that some vets objected to Premier Marois wearing a fleur de lis in her poppy.

First: I'm going to jump to Mme. Marois' defence.

I have to agree with you. For decades Quebec nationalists and separatists have complained that the Boer War, WWI and WWII were English wars and had nothing to do with Quebec or Canada. So, the fact that Premier Marois is even wearing a poppy I think is significant and good for her.
 
I suspect Pauline Marois' pin 'blunder' was more an effort to keep from looking like she's got too much bling.  The fleur de lis pin that she had holding on the poppy is one that she wears on most occasions.  In this case it served as double duty - she's still wearing her usual pin and it also keeps her from accidentally losing the poppy.

I have always maintained that the reason the Legion has never changed the design of how the poppy is attached is that it ensures repeat customers/donations when people inadvertently lose their poppies when getting out of the car, taking a bag off their shoulders, etc.
 
E.R. Campbell,

I seen this story on TV and wondered when it would appear here.  When I watched the story on TV it really pissed me off- I figured yup typical Quebecker move.  Ie here is a Canadian flag but instead of a maple leaf, the  fleur de lis.  How politically clever, look at you altering the poppy.  I'm not a fan of the poppy thanks to the antics of the legion but it made me mad this woman tried to seemingly make a statement. 

Being a big fan of your writings here I read your post and immediately though 'hell ya if you want to alter the poppy with something personal more power to you!'

I then realized the double standard I was guilty of and it's given me cause to examine my thoughts and reflect on me being prejudice, automatically assuming because she is french she was trying to make a political statement.

Thank you.
 
Susan Delacourt (Toronto Star) tweets that "Bus driver[Ottawa, I assume, since she cross referenced it to #loveOttawa] is asking people "where's your poppy?" and requesting they recite Flanders Field if not sporting one."

:rage:
If that's the case then the stupid ass should be fired, summarily. It's not his bloody business, nor that of his (ineffectual) employer, to ask, much less to impose some sort of silly-arsed penalty.

Jeezus, I hate stupid people and f'ing busybodies, and stupid f'ing busybodies make my blood boil.
:rage: off
 
E.R. Campbell said:
It's time for an annual rant .... So, please, wear your poppy in remembrance of our war dead - not our "glorious dead," there wasn't, ever, much glory - and, stop slagging Mme Marois for wearing hers. If you need some glory on Remembrance Day, consider, perhaps the text which is inscribed on the Memorial Arch which connects the East and West Veterans Memorial Building in Ottawa:

434491097_b1647c6fa8_z.jpg


All these were honoured in their generations, and were the glory of their times.
Ecclesiasticus 44:7
It's only a rant if it's senseless - FAR from it.  It's a good reminder, especially in light of mixed messaging from the Info-machine at this time of year re:  vets & remembering the fallen:
The Honourable Steven Blaney, Minister of Veterans Affairs and Eve Adams, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Veterans Affairs, joined the Honourable Roméo Dallaire, Senator and Chair of the Senate Subcommittee on Veterans Affairs, and Member of Parliament Gregg Kerr, Chair of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Veterans Affairs, for a wreath-laying ceremony paying tribute to Canadian Veterans at the National War Memorial and Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

“During Veterans’ Week, we pay tribute to all Canadian Veterans and continue to honour those who serve our country today,” said Minister Blaney. “The Government of Canada is dedicated to commemorating the sacrifices and achievements of the brave Canadians whose legacy is the peace and security we continue to enjoy today.”

This year marks significant historical military milestones with the 95th anniversary of the Battle of Vimy Ridge, the 95th anniversary of the capture of Passchendaele and the 70th anniversary of the Dieppe Raid. Each year, from November 5 to 11, Canadians join together to celebrate Veterans’ Week.

This Veterans’ Week, take time to remember by attending a Remembrance Day ceremony, visiting a local cenotaph or monument, sharing your thoughts of remembrance online, or wearing a poppy with pride. Learn more and find remembrance events and activities in your area at veterans.gc.ca.
Thanks, ER, for the reminder.  :remembrance:
 
Tis the season - this from the Senate yesterday:
Korean War Veterans Day Bill
First Reading
Hon. Yonah Martin introduced Bill S-213, An Act respecting a National Day of remembrance to honour Canadian veterans of the Korean War.

(Bill read first time.)

The Hon. the Speaker: Honourable senators, when shall this bill be read the second time?

(On motion of Senator Martin, bill placed on the Orders of the Day for second reading two days hence.)

More on Bill S-213 here - remember, such bills have only a slim chance of passing without government party support shown in both the House of Commons and the Senate.
 
E.R. Campbell said:
You are correct. Remembrance Day is not about veterans; they started it and (through the Royal Canadian Legion) some veterans still manage it, but the only really important people at the ceremony are the Governor General (who represents all Canadians, including the ones who remember nothing and care less) and the Silver Cross Mother (who represents all those who grieve for individual losses). The veterans, sitting in chairs, carrying flags or marching about (marching be used loosely) are window dressing. I believe we should have a Veteran's Day - making a nice long weekend in, say, February. (I would say in May but that's too close to Victoria Day which is so anachronistic that we really must keep it.)


I am losing have lost the war.

Tony Clement, one of Prime Minister Harper's most trusted ministers just said, today, "We honour Canada's veterans, some of whom paid the supreme sacrifice, in the House of Commons now." So that's the new party line: it is, really, Veterans' Week, and it's all about veterans and the two and a half minutes we devote to  :remembrance: remembrance  :remembrance: is just an afterthought.

Cancel my idea for a separate "Veterans' Day," we've already drunk the US kool-aid and it's on 11 Nov.
 
We have other months dedicated to various groups, lets piggy back movember with Veterans awareness month.

;D
 
Do you agree with Remembrance Day becoming a National Holiday?

I fully support it!

I think it is definitely time for us to honour those who fought for a better world, us, and our freedom in a better way and died along the journey.

As well as those veterans who did the same, and lost their friends along the way.
 
Remembrance Day has nothing to do with veterans. It's a day to remember those who never got a chance to be veterans.
 
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