Legion brass out of step on Nov. 11, bill's backer says
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Legion brass out of step on Nov. 11, bill's backer says
VVi 06 Nov 2010 db
Some supporters who want Remembrance Day to be a statutory holiday in Ontario suggested on Friday that leaders of the Royal Canadian Legion who oppose the change are out of step with the rank and file.
"Nov. 11 should be a national holiday," said Ernie Hughes, president of the Barrhaven Legion. "That's the way most veterans here feel. Legionnaires everywhere feel the same way. Remembrance Day is growing every year. When it falls on a Saturday or Sunday we have a great turnout because the children are there.
When it's during the week, because it's a federal government holiday, it becomes the second biggest shopping day next to Boxing Day. And that's wrong."
Hughes was among 120 people at the Barrhaven legion where Nepean-Carleton MPP Lisa MacLeod launched a petition to the Ontario government calling for the stat holiday. MacLeod introduced the idea in a private members bill at Queens Park Thursday.
The legion's national office and Ontario office are opposed because they believe children will miss out on
Remembrance Day services if schools are closed.
"They'll treat it as another day off," said Bob Butt, spokesman for the Legion's Dominion command.
Robyn Zettler, assistant executive director of the Ontario command, said delegates to provincial conferences have defeated the idea in the past.
"The number one concern is participation on Remembrance Day from youth and students," she said.
"Many schools come to the cenotaphs. Should the schools be closed we feel that would hurt our program."
MacLeod says that's an old position.
"Times have changed in the last 10 years in the life of Canada with the sacrifices of our soldiers in Afghanistan, as a result of those men and women travelling down the Highway of Heroes," she said.
"There's an outpouring of respect, grief and admiration for Ontario's fallen each and every time there's a repatriation. I think that speaks volumes."
She thanked the Barrhaven and Manotick legions for "standing strong" on the issue.
Retired Maj.-Gen. Lewis MacKenzie appeared at her side to lend his support. He too dismissed the legion executives' concerns.
"Let me assure you that in my entire lifetime I have never seen the attention that teachers and communities are expending on their young people and the positive response of the young people in this country," he told the gathering.
"As we speak there are some schools digging trenches in the back of the schoolyard in the rain and having some of the students spend time in there to replicate as least for a short time, trench warfare in World War One.
"Lisa's bill ensures that on the last school day before Remembrance Day there will be ceremonies in the school. So it's a double victory."
Ontario is one of three provinces along with Manitoba and Quebec not to have Remembrance Day as a stat holiday.
"We're very close to a national stat holiday," said MacKenzie.
MacLeod noted that 34 per cent of Canada's war dead in Afghanistan call Ontario home and thousands more Ontarians lay down their lives in the First and Second World Wars, the Boer War, the Korean War and peacekeeping missions.
"It's been so incredible the outpouring of support across the province," she said.
"We've got 277,0000 people on Facebook in favour of a stat holiday. The government is mulling over the idea. Hopefully we'll show we've got momentum across Ontario. I would like it done before we pull out of Afghanistan as a nation."
Gus Este, a 79-year-old Korean War veteran, said a holiday will help children and youth to remember.
"It will put the focus on Remembrance Day. It will allow the kids to go to ceremonies, allow them to go to church.
"It's extremely important the youth be aware of what happening because if we can't remember our past, there's not much hope for our future."