Hundreds of people, some in uniform, gathered on Wednesday around the cenotaph at Toronto’s Old City Hall for the Remembrance Day ceremony.
As the ceremony started at 10:45 a.m., a lone drum sounded while veterans, RCMP officers, Toronto police officers and city officials marched in unison. Members of the armed forces wearing modern and historic military uniforms stood around the cenotaph with their heads bowed.
People sang “O Canada” together, followed by two minutes of silence in tribute to those who never came back from the battlegrounds.
As a bagpiper played “Last Post,” pilots from the Canadian Harvard Aircraft Association performed the “missing man” formation above the monument as an aerial salute to honour those who served and sacrificed.
“It’s not only about the people who died, but it’s about service,” said Brian Kwok, a military veteran who joined the army in 1992. “To me, this is one of the most important days.”
He also said the person he remembers most right now is Corporal Ainsworth Dyer, a paratrooper who had served in both the Balkans and Afghanistan and was killed on April 17, 2002, when his position was bombed by an American warplane in a friendly fire incident at Tarnak Farms.
Mayor Olivia Chow addressed the crowd, honouring “the brave men and women who served and gave their lives in service to Canada.”
The loss of four soldiers in a fire during a training exercise at CFB Wainwright in Alberta is still a fresh scar on the hearts of Canadians. Mayor Chow paid tribute to the fallen soldiers, saying “they were young, with their whole lives ahead of them.”
She also honoured the Royal Canadian Legion’s 100th anniversary and its services to veterans and their families.
“The Legion has stood up for veterans and their families. It has kept their stories alive,” she said. “Every November, its volunteers stand outside our subway stations and grocery stores, handing out the poppies we wear today.”
“In Flanders Fields” was the song that followed, sung by the Elmer Iseler Singers, accompanied by the 7th Regiment Band of the Royal Canadian Artillery.
Then wreaths were laid beside the cenotaph, with the first laid by Mayor Chow, followed by army chiefs, representatives of organizations and consular representatives from about 15 countries, including France, Germany, Israel and Türkiye.
The area facing Old City Hall was packed with people, but it was hard to spot anyone from Gen Z among them.
June Brown, whose father was among more than 45,000 Canadians who lost their lives in the Second World War, believes younger generations are not aware enough of the sacrifices their grandfathers made during the war.
“Less of this generation, like my grandchildren, know much about the sacrifice of others, so we’re teaching it in the schools, which helps,” she said. “But if you look around the general public on any given transportation or the sidewalk, there’s not many poppies, so people are forgetting.”
Emily Cathcart, who brought a picture of her grandfather, a Second World War veteran, with her to the ceremony, said she hoped the meaning of Remembrance Day hadn’t changed for younger generations.
“We’ve so many of our veterans are gone now. We’ve got so many more. They’re all of them are going to be gone eventually,” Cathcart, who has six war veterans in her family, said. “I think it’s up to the future generations to carry on their memory.”
