One of the most revered days in the Canadian calendar was caught up in controversy this week as a debate raged over the appropriateness of playing an Arabic song and invoking the transatlantic slave trade during Remembrance Day ceremonies.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has accused some event organizers of being too “woke” and defiling a day meant to mourn war dead and pay respect to Canadian soldiers, sailors and airmen who fought to protect the country.
“What an absolute disgrace that so many woke activists & authorities used Remembrance Day to push their divisive and radical causes, denigrating our history and the brave military members who sacrificed for it,” Poilievre said in a social media post Tuesday.
Poilievre hasn’t said much about what he would do with the military — he’s repeatedly dodged questions about meeting NATO spending targets — but he has promised to dismantle what he calls a “woke” culture and replace it with a “warrior” one.
It’s not just Poilievre — other critics have said the military’s embrace of diversity and inclusion initiatives is a distraction from its main function: preparing for war and protecting Canada. The Liberal government, meanwhile, has said a culture change is needed to boost recruitment and better protect Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) members.
Sean Bruyea is a Gulf War veteran and one of the country’s leading advocates for Canada’s service members.
While he said politicians often claim to stand up for veterans only to forget about them later, Bruyea welcomed Poilievre’s defence of tradition.
He said what transpired this week with some Remembrance Day ceremonies was “deeply offensive” for many in the veterans’ community.
An Ottawa school’s decision to play an Arabic song associated with the Gaza conflict was “a completely unnecessary provocation,” Bruyea said.
“There’s a recipe for Remembrance Day that has long supported and assuaged the long-lasting grief of veterans and their families. And that formula works,” he told CBC News.
“When it gets mixed and distorted with other conflicts or causes that aren’t really part of that Remembrance Day tradition — you lose the message, you lose the focus on our sacrifice. It really demeans and diminishes what I sacrificed.”
Traditions can evolve, Bruyea said, but the ceremony should remain squarely focused on its intended purpose: honouring those who fought for Canada. Other causes should be saved for another day, he added.
Bruyea said a Halifax school’s decision to discourage military uniforms at its Remembrance Day event to “maintain a welcoming environment for all” — a decision that was swiftly reversed — was particularly upsetting.
“That affects veterans deeply and personally and makes them question themselves,” Bruyea said.
“The thing about the uniform really speaks to a lack of understanding in the Canadian public about military service. The military doesn’t represent war. The military represents peace, protection and security. There’s a real gap — a canyon, really — in terms of what the public knows about the military.”
Poilievre said school principal should be fired
Poilievre’s comments on “woke” officials referred to two events that have drawn the ire of some Conservative supporters.
The first was the City of Toronto’s Remembrance Day ceremony, during which Aretha Phillip, the city’s chief of protocol, read a lengthy land acknowledgement recognizing the different First Nations from the area, called some people “settlers” and invoked the horrors of the transatlantic slave trade.
“We pay tribute to ancestors of African origin and descent,” Phillip told the assembled crowd at Old City Hall while praising the No. 2 Construction Battalion, an all-Black regiment that she said faced discrimination in the First World War.
A city spokesperson told CBC News Phillip was following Toronto’s practice of reading land and African ancestral acknowledgements ahead of some events. “The city’s chief of protocol acted in a way that is consistent with city practice,” the spokesperson said.
The city’s policy on the African acknowledgement says it’s “optional” and is intended to be delivered by someone of African descent.
The second incident that drew fire from Poilievre, the local Progressive Conservative MPP, Jewish organizations and parents was an Ottawa high school’s decision to play Haza Salam, an Arabic song sometimes associated with the conflict in Gaza, during its Remembrance Day ceremony.
Many comments on multiple YouTube videos of the song speak of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and the suffering of Palestinians, although the song itself makes no mention of the conflict in the Middle East.
Poilievre took the unusual step Wednesday of saying the principal at Sir Robert Borden High School, Aaron Hobbs, should “be fired now.”
“A high school principal tried to justify playing protest songs at a Remembrance Day ceremony, demeaning and devaluing the service of women and men who died defending our country’s freedom,” he said.
A spokesperson for the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board said the incident is under investigation. Hobbs has since apologized for “causing distress.”
Remembrance Day is still relevant: historian
Jonathan Vance is a professor at the University of Western Ontario who teaches Canadian history and has written extensively about Canada’s wartime experience.
He said Remembrance Day has been a political football in the past — it fell out of favour when public opinion was running against the war in Vietnam in the 1960s and ’70s. He said he’s not surprised to see that happening again in the current climate.
“It’s being politicized for shallow partisan purposes. That’s the reality of Canada in the 21st century,” Vance told CBC News.
“There’s this sort of siege mentality: ‘If you take this away from us, what’s next, what do we have left?’ There’s a kind of defensiveness,” he said of people who reject changes to the traditional Remembrance Day program of playing the Last Post, reciting In Flanders Field and taking in a moment of silence.
But the ceremony has evolved over the years to be more inclusive, Vance said, and it hasn’t diminished its significance.
“There was a recognition that we can’t keep doing the same thing, the same way, decade after decade,” he said. “It just loses its relevance.”
At a time of growing conflicts around the world, Canadians gathered on Remembrance Day to honour the sacrifices of the veterans who served their country and the many who never made it home.
It morphed from Armistice Day into Remembrance Day in the 1930s, so that it would not be exclusively focused on the First World War, he said.
And as Canadians have become both more secular and more religiously diverse, Remembrance Day ceremonies have become less focused on Christianity.
Recent memorials have also incorporated more Indigenous elements to mark First Nations’ major contributions in conflicts like the War of 1812 and the First World War.
The Royal Canadian Legion and other organizers have also worked hard to make the ceremonies more racially diverse, Vance said.
Vance said that evolution has secured Remembrance Day’s place as a key national event with almost universal acceptance.
Anecdotal evidence suggests Vance is right. Attendance at the ceremony in Ottawa this year was the largest in recent memory, with people lined up around the National War Memorial and down the surrounding city streets, despite the gloomy weather. Tens of thousands of Canadians gathered at cenotaphs across the country.
In Flanders Fields is still recited each year at Remembrance Day ceremonies in Canada — more than a century after it was written during the First World War. Here’s a look back at the soldier the poem was about.
A poll for Historica Canada, the charity that produces the Heritage Minutes, found eight in 10 respondents say it’s important to attend Remembrance Day ceremonies.
While Memorial Day in the U.S. is a day when professional sports take centre stage, and the U.K.’s Remembrance Sunday is a more religious affair, Remembrance Day is generally laser-focused on the sacrifices of Canada’s military, Vance said.
He said this latest controversy is actually a good thing for those who cherish Remembrance Day and its place in national life. The passionate responses to perceived slights show the day is still deeply relevant to many Canadians.
“The way to keep an observance alive is to have it debated and discussed on the front pages. The fact that this day is so contested — it suggests how important the day really is,” Vance said.
“The thing that guarantees the end of your special day is when nobody pays attention to it. Who gets angry about Trafalgar Day now? Nobody, because nobody cares,” he said, referring to the anniversary of the 1805 British naval victory over the French.
“It’s a great success story — it’s good that people are so attached to it that they get offended,” he said.