Dozens of people gathered outside the Mississauga Civic Centre on Nov. 11 to honour past and present Canadian veterans.
The ceremony began with a procession comprised of bagpipers, the Toronto Scottish Guard, Mississauga firefighters and Peel Regional Police officers.
There was also a moment to honour Canada’s Indigenous veterans.
People were told Indigenous veterans fought alongside their non-Indigenous troops, but they did not receive the same recognition for their service.
"We’re here to salute the selflessness, courage, and determination of our veterans," Mississauga Mayor Carolyn Parrish said. "We’re here to remember the ultimate sacrifice paid by so many of our men and women. They served valiantly in the First World War, the Second World War, the Korean War, and in Afghanistan. And we, of course, honour those currently deployed as well.”
Andrea Josek, Mississauga’s poet laureate, recited the iconic poem In Flanders Fields.
After the two minutes of silence, wreaths were laid by the mayor, city councillors, members of provincial parliament and others in honour of veterans.
Beverley Francis, a Black woman, said before the event began that Remembrance Day is important to her.
“It means a lot to me because to see that the freedom I can have and enjoy right now for my grandchildren and my great-grandchildren," she said. "
"My brother was in the Army Reserve, and I had always loved the Army, and I wish I would have been in there," said Francis, who represented the Mississauga Seventh-Day Adventist Church and helped lay a wreath.
Former Humber social sciences instructor and retired police officer, Karen Corkhill, said that her grandfather served during the Second World War in Africa.
“An interesting story with them was that he was actually working in the coal mines, and those people were generally considered exempt," she said. "But because he could drive, he was conscripted into the Army, and he left in 1939 and didn’t come back till 1945.”
