Remembrance Day
What we remember
Remembrance Day occurs in Canada each November 11. It is a day of national commemoration for the more than 100,000 Canadians who have died in military service. The costs for Canada, with its relatively small population, have been substantial.
| Population | Served | Died | Wounded | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| First World War (1914-1918) | 7,800,000 | 625,825 | 61,082 | 154,361 |
| Second World War (1939-1945) | 11,500,000 | 1,086,343 | 42,042 | 54,414 |
| Korean War (1950-53) |
14,000,000 | 27,751 | 516 | 1,072 |
| Peacekeeping | N/A | 119 | N/A |
Remembrance and Remembrance Day at the Canadian War Museum
The Canadian War Museum, in addition to its role as the national museum of military history, is a living memorial to Canada’s war dead. The new building soon to open on LeBreton Flats contains a Memorial Hall, a quiet place to reflect upon the sacrifices of Canadians in war and peace. Memorial Hall contains the original headstone of Canada’s Unknown Soldier who is interred under the National War Memorial in Ottawa.
Also, every year since 1994, when worldwide ceremonies marked the 1944 Allied landings in Normandy, the CWM has held a special sunset event in the courtyard of its premises at 330 Sussex Drive. In 2004, with the Sussex Drive building closed and the new museum on LeBreton Flats yet to open, a special Commemorative Concert will be held in the theatre of the Canadian War Museum’s partner museum, the Canadian Museum of Civilization, across the Ottawa River in Gatineau, Quebec. As of next year, annual Remembrance Day commemorations will continue to be a feature event at the new Canadian War Museum.
Armistice Day
An annual day of commemoration for Canada’s war dead began after the First World War. With some 60,000 Canadians killed, the war produced a profound sense of loss in a country whose greatest military tragedy to date had been 267 dead in the South African War of 1899-1902. The huge cost of the so-called “Great War” was truly stunning for Canada, as it was for all combatant nations. As early as April 1919, Isaac Pedlow, Member of Parliament (MP) for South Renfrew, introduced a motion in the House of Commons to institute an annual “Armistice Day,” to be held on the second Monday of November. The term “armistice” denotes the cessation of hostilities in a conflict, and it was used universally for the final silencing of the guns that ended the First World War at 11 a.m. on November 11, 1918.
Members agreed that there should be a special day to mark the Armistice, but were split over the day on which it should be held. Responding to the views of the veterans’ community, many argued that it should occur on the actual anniversary of the Armistice: November 11. Those who had come through the war felt that a solemn occasion marking the deaths of 60,000 comrades was important enough to merit this distinction. A special appeal sent out by King George V to the Empire on November 6, urging that the year-old Armistice be marked by the suspension of all ordinary activities and the observance of two minutes of silence at precisely 11 a.m. on November 11 settled the issue. This was how Canada marked its first Armistice Day.
Armistice Day linked with Thanksgiving Day
Canadians commemorated Armistice Day in 1920 the same way as in 1919. However, MP H.M. Mowat, of Toronto again brought a proposal before the House of Commons for a special annual Armistice Day to be held on the Monday of the week in which November 11 fell. This was to be joined with Thanksgiving Day, until then a floating holiday held at the government’s discretion. Parliament finally passed this proposal, in the form of the Armistice Day Act, in May 1921.
Creating a single new holiday on a long weekend responded primarily to the wishes of the business community, but it proved unpopular with veterans and the public at large. A day for celebrating the “bountiful harvest,” Thanksgiving normally included sports and other amusements associated with a festive occasion. Armistice Day, on the other hand, was a time of commemoration and meditation, characterized by solemn ceremonies at cenotaphs.
Signs of trouble were evident as early as November 7, 1921, the very first occasion that the two events were held together. The front page of the Toronto Globe, for example, announced that the rector of the Anglican Church in Smith’s Falls, Ontario, had openly criticized the government for attempting to combine the two events and intimated that “in his church each would be observed by itself.” An official of the local Great War Veterans’ Association proclaimed “henceforth veterans here would observe only November 11 as Armistice Day.”
Armistice Day becomes Remembrance Day
Armistice Day and Thanksgiving remained linked for the next decade. Held every year on the Monday before November 11, Thanksgiving was celebrated with special dinners at home and sports and other activities outside. These normally passed quietly and went unnoticed by the press. In contrast, even though it was not an official holiday, November 11 saw large and serious minded gatherings at local cenotaphs and also on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, which usually received intensive press coverage. This unpopular anomaly could not last. At its founding convention in Winnipeg in November 1925, the Canadian Legion passed a resolution affirming that Armistice Day should be held only on November 11 and led a campaign to have this enacted by Parliament.
On March 18, 1931, A.W. Neil, MP for Comox-Alberni in British Columbia, introduced a motion in the House of Commons to have Armistice Day observed on November 11 and “on no other date.” Concerns about the holiday’s impact on business, he claimed, were “irrelevant.” At the same time, another MP, C.W. Dickie of Nanaimo, also speaking on behalf of veterans, moved an amendment changing the name from “Armistice” to “Remembrance” Day. This term, he felt, better “implies that we wish to remember and perpetuate.” As historian Denise Thompson, has suggested, “the term ‘Remembrance Day’ placed the emphasis squarely upon memory – and by extension upon the soldiers whose deaths were being remembered – rather than upon the Armistice, a political achievement in which rank-and-file soldiers were not directly involved.” Parliament quickly adopted these resolutions, and Canada held its first ‘Remembrance Day’ on November 11, 1931.
Since 1931
Remembrance Day has remained the official title for the annual commemoration ever since, although the term “Armistice Day,” is sometimes used interchangeably, but unofficially. “Remembrance Day,” a more flexible and inclusive term, readily accommodates the remembrance of war dead from the Second World War, the Korean War, other conflicts, and peacekeeping.
Every year ceremonies are held at cenotaphs in cities and towns across the country, involving prayer, recitations, and playing the traditional military bugle calls of “Last Post” followed by “Reveille.” The largest, carried live by the national television networks, is held at the National War Memorial in Ottawa and attended by the prime minister, the governor general, and the “Silver Cross Mother,” a mother who has actually lost a child or children in action. Remembrance Day ceremonies offer veterans the opportunity to remember and salute fallen comrades, and all Canadians an occasion to reflect on the sacrifices made and the tragedies endured in their name.
Source: The Canadian War Museum