The Royal Canadian Legion is making the unprecedented resolve to deter Canadians from attending Remembrance Day ceremonies this year, as COVID-19 disrupts classic tactics of honoring those who have sacrificed their lives for Canada.
Legion affiliates across the country are struggling to plan lighter versions of the dark annual ceremonies of November 11, as many local governments meet on a large scale due to the growing number of new instances of COVID-19.
This includes in Ottawa, where no fewer than 30,000 Canadians meet with a lot of veterans and service members each year to commemorate Remembrance Day at the National War Memorial.
This year’s national rite will come with many classic elements like reading Last Post and lamenting, making a song at Flanders Fields, as well as the arms boom, prayers and an army overpass, Legion communications director Nujma Bond said.
But some adjustments due to COVID-19 will be undeniable, with the resolve to cancel the parade of elderly veterans, service members and school-age cadets who have long been an integral part of the event.
The Department of National Defense doesn’t have to invite cadets to attend Remembrance Day events across Canada, spokesman Daniel Le Bouthillier said. The participation of the Canadian Armed Forces workers’ corps is also limited, he added, with decisions made on a case-by-case basis. -Case base.
The resolve to cancel the annual Veterans Parade in Ottawa is astonishing given the d’age number of Canadians who are still alive and served in World War II and Korea. Some now in their 80s and 90s have challenged the disbelievers for decades to attend the ceremony, however age exposes them to a great threat of COVID-19.
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Instead, only a handful of others will be available in The Cenotaphile, as the Legion asks Canadians to adhere to local fitness rules and watch the rite on television or online than in person.
“For the first time in history, we will deter viewers from going to the National War Memorial,” Bond said. “It is a disgrace this year that we all had to paint within the limitations that this pandemic has created. “
About 30,000 other people attend the national rite year, Bond said.
The same reluctant request is made through legions in other parts of the country, even as the organizers clarify the main points in the context of the conversion of the public aptitude guidelines.
One is branch five of the Legion in Thunder Bay, Ontario, whose annual open-air rite and parade amounts to up to fifteen veterans, military, cadets and volunteers, and is attended by approximately five00 people.
“Obviously, with the restrictions imposed on us across the province and the local fitness office, we had gone down to a hundred because we were outside,” said the segment’s president, Lester Newman. “We still don’t know if it’s been absolutely reduced again. , which would almost prevent it. “
“The Rite of Ottawa has city permission for up to a hundred other people because of the nature of the commemoration,” Bond said, “though everything can obviously until then. “)
Newman, who served 42 years as a naval reservist before retiring as a lieutenant commander, said he had attended Remembrance Day ceremonies for decades and was “part of my training. “
The occasion organized through branch five of the Legion is vital for the three Thunder Bay infantrymen who died in Afghanistan, said Newman, Colonel Anthony Boneca, Lieutenant Robert Costall and Lieutenant Josh Klukie were killed in separate incidents in 2006.
Despite restrictions in Ottawa and Canada, Bond said ceremonies would remain unchanged in their respect for Canadian veterans and some of the family elements.
“And we are very hopeful and invite other people to participate in other ways,” he added. “This is a turning point for the Legion every year, a turning point for veterans and for many Canadians. “
The ways to participate are not only to watch on TV or online, but also to dress up in poppies once you have them later this month and detect two minutes of silence at 11 a. m. November 11, no matter where other people are.
Still, “it’s unhappy that we have to restrict the numbers,” said Bob Underhill, legion’s vice president of operations in British Columbia and Yukon and head of the rite organizing committee in Vancouver’s Victory Square.
The Victory Square rite is thought to be the largest moment in Canada after Ottawa, with approximately another 20,000 people attending each year, but this year, Underhill said the number remained below the local high of 50.
“We’re looking for our bands and soloists to make their component virtually, not attract others to Victory Square,” Underhill said.
“We’re going to have our official crown deposit on site, but we’re going to check to minimize what we’re doing on the site so as not to get attention and gather other people because we’re below the maximum of 50 friends. It’s going to be very different. “