Rememberance Day 1998.

["Jean-Francois Avon" <jf_avon@citenet.net>]

================= forwarded from CFD V2 #696 ============
Date: Fri, 13 Nov 1998 06:03:49 -0600
From: Dan MacInnis <dan.louise@sympatico.ca>
Subject: Rememberance Day 1998.

It is past eleven O'clock here. It is November 11th, 1998. On this
date every year
my mind always returns to thoughts of my uncle, whose body, it's
elements long ago
returned to the earth, the dust undisturbed in a European grave, the
man for whom I was
renamed when the sad news reached my mother and grandfather on that
early spring
morning many years ago. Even as child their wet faces impacted me,
forever.

It drifted today to Ottawa, where I once stood cold but proud close to
one Paul Hellyer, then Minister of National Defense under the Honorable
Prime Minister Lester Bowles Pearson.
It was Rememberance Day, Paul was delivering the obligatory service
beside a Cenotaph,
the soldiers, sailors and airmen stood at ease waiting for the
ceremonies to end,
pretending to listen to his resonant, educated voice. It was a bitter
cold day,
I knew they would prefer to be at their homes, or in their messes or
just anyplace but on parade that day.

I was proud to be associated with a government, indeed a country even,
with such diversity, such room for individuals to work, play and
overcome the challenges each would experience. It honestly was a Free
Canada, individuals could aspire to whatever their imaginations deemed
them worthy to become.

Later that evening, at a Military function, a member of the RCAF
suggested to me, each of us with the government issued glass in the
right hand, white serviette properly wrapped around it to keep the hand
warm and dry for handshaking, that someday he expected I would be
Minister of National Defense. Sadly enough, we both believed it.

But today is November 11th, 1998, at about 11:50 AM. My pride in the
Liberal Party of Canada has been shattered. My belief that issues like
Conscription, which polarized our founding peoples for two generations,
would never surface, ever again, gone. My belief that MY PARTY stood
for individual rights, the only force that would stand between the
Elite's and the common person, gone. Forever. So it a doubly sad day
for me. My uncle, and my Party.

Bill C68 has intruded into the lives of so many Canadians, and if left
to stand as is, will undermine everything I stood there that cold Ottawa
morning to pay tribute, and everything my uncle died for in that foreign
field so long ago. He died with no idea the rifle he carried to fight
for our freedoms would become such a divisive symbol a few short years
later.

On this morning I shall not revisit the implications of C68. Rather, I
will ask those struggling to preserve out heritage to continue the
fight. Do not surrender.

Then, when it becomes our time to let our earthly possessions go, when
our bodies begin
the journey back to the dust from whence they came and our spirits
return to source,
perhaps the cold white silk of the casket or the sides of the urn
holding our ashes will be a bit warmer knowing we did all we could for
those who follow.

Anything less of us would be shameful.