It is now five years since Don Cherry was fired by Rogers Sportsnet for comments he made regarding the need for Remembrance Day to be more fully embraced by newcomers to Canada.
This is what he said:
“You people ... you love our way of life, you love our milk and honey, at least you can pay a couple bucks for a poppy or something like that. These guys paid for your way of life that you enjoy in Canada; these guys paid the biggest price.”
There was a time when it wouldn’t be necessary to explain the meaning of the poppy. Traditionally, it has been worn throughout Canada to remember and honour the sacrifice of the nation’s war dead—some 66,000 in the Great War of 1914–1918, another 44,000 in World War II and others from the Boer War through to Afghanistan where 158 Canadians lost their lives defending the way of life we enjoy in Canada.
The poppy was chosen, according to the Royal Canadian Legion, for its connection to the poem “In Flanders Fields” written by Lt. John McCrae following the funeral of a fellow soldier. It goes, in part, like this:
When I was a boy, the weekend magazines of newspapers published around Remembrance Day would always, or so it seemed to me at the time, contain lengthy articles about great Canadian battles at Passchendaele, Ypres, and Vimy. Lest we break faith.
My father, who served in the RCAF, would always make sure we visited the local cenotaph on Nov. 11—Remembrance Day—lest we break faith.
My mother’s father, George Jones, lived closest to us though and I can still recall how my cousins and I would stare in awe whenever we could convince him to show the scar from the German bullet he took to the thigh. He would tell us only pleasant stories about pretty French girls and racing lice to battle the boredom of life in the trenches. My mother tells me that George’s mother, riddled with anxiety, spent his war years in bed. Today, one cousin has the German spiked helmet Grandpa took as a souvenir while I have his metal Canadian helmet. One day, it will go to the safe keeping of my grandchildren, lest we break faith.
The Canada those men and a million others fought and too often died for is long gone. Few would be inspired in today’s Canada, for sure, to fight for King and Country. We always knew that was coming because time and people change. My children and grandchildren never got to see Grandpa’s scars or hear his stories. Time and changing moral fashions will always challenge memories.
That’s OK. But what is not OK is the failure to honour those who lived history as it was and not as some wish to recreate or shape it to conform to their current reality.
Yes, it was five years ago when Cherry’s clumsy plea finished his on-air career. But it was only a year ago when it was learned that a new directive to Canadian Armed Forces chaplains instructed them to replace prayer with “spiritual reflection in public settings.”
“A Remembrance Day ceremony reduced to a general ’spiritual reflection' that supposedly applies to all, actually applies to none. It would be a commemoration where many military members wouldn’t see or recognize themselves, their beliefs or their traditions. ... Bland spiritual reflections aren’t inclusive. These practices force the religiously faithful of Canada to stay silent and unseen.”
“Prayer will remain an important part of Remembrance Day ceremonies organized by the Legion, including the one at the National War Memorial. While military chaplains are required to modify their language, that decision does not eliminate the inclusion of prayer to God or a higher power by other spiritual representatives at Legion ceremonies.”
In other words, Remembrance Day and the poppies we wear aren’t about us and our too often cheap and meaningless modern sensibilities. It’s about the sacrifices of others and their traditions.
God bless those who stand fast with their beliefs, their courage, and their memory.
We shall not break faith.
