For generations, the legion has been a community gathering spot for veterans and their families, but some legion branches now say declining membership and mounting bills are creating mounting stress.
Ottawa’s Centretown Legion, known as Montgomery Branch 351, offers its members a range of services from Euchre tournaments to tax clinics, and education on fraud and identity theft. But a broken elevator and an estimated $100,000 repair bill mean some of its most loyal members can no longer enter the mulit-storey facility.
The branch’s president, Dennis Sirman, says many of the branch’s members are veterans in their 80s and 90s.
Sirman says the branch has basically emptied its savings to pay for the repairs, but it is still short. That’s why a crowdfunding campaign has been launched.
Without a functioning elevator, many private groups that bring in revenue are hesitant to book space. The branch says it can cover its bills and still has around 300 members, but that there is stress every month when the bills are due.
“We had some momentum going and were actually several months in the black and then the elevator failed,” he said.
The Montgomery branch is not alone in its financial stress or in its efforts to reach further into the community to help raise money.
“The veterans fought for us. We should keep this legion going because they fought for us, so we could be here and safe,” said Tanya Clements, the second vice president for Branch 5 Legion.
Last year, a local radio station in Edmonton raised enough money through three meat draws to help Edmonton’s Kingsway Legion, Branch 175, get back into the black. But facing utility bills of roughly $16,000 a month, the branch’s president says pressure is mounting again.
“We have a problem and that’s going to become our next big bugbear, making sure that we have sufficient funds to pay those big bills,” said the branch’s president, Robert (Mac) Torrie. “It’s very stressful. It keeps the manager asking where are we going to find the money.”
Torrie says the branch is trying to get creative in coming up with new fundraising and revenue streams. But membership and the pool of volunteers, he says, are not going in the right direction.
“We have a lot of card carrying members and if it wasn’t for associate and affiliate members a lot of legions would be closed”, he said. “Unfortunately we just don’t have the veterans … those born in the 90s and on, they just don’t seem to be interested in joining the legion. They saw that as their grandfather’s drinking place, or grandmother’s.”
Each legion branch is independently operated from the Royal Canadian Legion and run mainly by dedicated volunteers.
“The legion’s main purpose is to keep remembrance going and to assist any veteran in time of need, either financially or morally,” said Torrie, whose legion branch does have some paid employees.
The Royal Canadian Legion says that while individual branches may face hardship due to rising operational costs and changing community demographics, a spokesperson says the legion as a whole has actually seen a five per cent growth in membership year-over-year over the past two years.
“The legion is seeing membership growth at every provincial command across the country,” said Nujma Bond, communications manager for the Royal Canadian Legion. “Branches are run primarily by volunteers and can face localized challenges, but their unique situations do not translate into a current problem across the country.”
Over the past 12 months, the Royal Canadian Legion says only four of its more than 1,350 branches have closed and some, including one at UBC, have opened.
Sirman’s old Ottawa legion branch closed in June 2020 and he hopes branches remain a community staple for decades to come. The family that is created at a legion, he says, needs to be preserved and cherished.
“Every time you lose a legion, you lose that centre point, or community point,” he said. “It’s frustrating because sometimes you throw your hands up in disgust and say, ‘What can I do?’ Then you have a successful karaoke night or a celebration of life for a long-time member and it restores the energy that you have to keep moving forward.”
VANCOUVER – Contract negotiations resume today in Vancouver in a labour dispute that has paralyzed container cargo shipping at British Columbia’s ports since Monday.
The BC Maritime Employers Association and International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 514 are scheduled to meet for the next three days in mediated talks to try to break a deadlock in negotiations.
The union, which represents more than 700 longshore supervisors at ports, including Vancouver, Prince Rupert and Nanaimo, has been without a contract since March last year.
The latest talks come after employers locked out workers in response to what it said was “strike activity” by union members.
The start of the lockout was then followed by several days of no engagement between the two parties, prompting federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon to speak with leaders on both sides, asking them to restart talks.
MacKinnon had said that the talks were “progressing at an insufficient pace, indicating a concerning absence of urgency from the parties involved” — a sentiment echoed by several business groups across Canada.
In a joint letter, more than 100 organizations, including the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Business Council of Canada and associations representing industries from automotive and fertilizer to retail and mining, urged the government to do whatever it takes to end the work stoppage.
“While we acknowledge efforts to continue with mediation, parties have not been able to come to a negotiated agreement,” the letter says. “So, the federal government must take decisive action, using every tool at its disposal to resolve this dispute and limit the damage caused by this disruption.
“We simply cannot afford to once again put Canadian businesses at risk, which in turn puts Canadian livelihoods at risk.”
In the meantime, the union says it has filed a complaint to the Canada Industrial Relations Board against the employers, alleging the association threatened to pull existing conditions out of the last contract in direct contact with its members.
“The BCMEA is trying to undermine the union by attempting to turn members against its democratically elected leadership and bargaining committee — despite the fact that the BCMEA knows full well we received a 96 per cent mandate to take job action if needed,” union president Frank Morena said in a statement.
The employers have responded by calling the complaint “another meritless claim,” adding the final offer to the union that includes a 19.2 per cent wage increase over a four-year term remains on the table.
“The final offer has been on the table for over a week and represents a fair and balanced proposal for employees, and if accepted would end this dispute,” the employers’ statement says. “The offer does not require any concessions from the union.”
The union says the offer does not address the key issue of staffing requirement at the terminals as the port introduces more automation to cargo loading and unloading, which could potentially require fewer workers to operate than older systems.
The Port of Vancouver is the largest in Canada and has seen a number of labour disruptions, including two instances involving the rail and grain storage sectors earlier this year.
A 13-day strike by another group of workers at the port last year resulted in the disruption of a significant amount of shipping and trade.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
The Royal Canadian Legion says a new partnership with e-commerce giant Amazon is helping boost its veterans’ fund, and will hopefully expand its donor base in the digital world.
Since the Oct. 25 launch of its Amazon.ca storefront, the legion says it has received nearly 10,000 orders for poppies.
Online shoppers can order lapel poppies on Amazon in exchange for donations or buy items such as “We Remember” lawn signs, Remembrance Day pins and other accessories, with all proceeds going to the legion’s Poppy Trust Fund for Canadian veterans and their families.
Nujma Bond, the legion’s national spokesperson, said the organization sees this move as keeping up with modern purchasing habits.
“As the world around us evolves we have been looking at different ways to distribute poppies and to make it easier for people to access them,” she said in an interview.
“This is definitely a way to reach a wider number of Canadians of all ages. And certainly younger Canadians are much more active on the web, on social media in general, so we’re also engaging in that way.”
Al Plume, a member of a legion branch in Trenton, Ont., said the online store can also help with outreach to veterans who are far from home.
“For veterans that are overseas and are away, (or) can’t get to a store they can order them online, it’s Amazon.” Plume said.
Plume spent 35 years in the military with the Royal Engineers, and retired eight years ago. He said making sure veterans are looked after is his passion.
“I’ve seen the struggles that our veterans have had with Veterans Affairs … and that’s why I got involved, with making sure that the people get to them and help the veterans with their paperwork.”
But the message about the Amazon storefront didn’t appear to reach all of the legion’s locations, with volunteers at Branch 179 on Vancouver’s Commercial Drive saying they hadn’t heard about the online push.
Holly Paddon, the branch’s poppy campaign co-ordinator and bartender, said the Amazon partnership never came up in meetings with other legion volunteers and officials.
“I work at the legion, I work with the Vancouver poppy office and I go to the meetings for the Vancouver poppy campaign — which includes all the legions in Vancouver — and not once has this been mentioned,” she said.
Paddon said the initiative is a great idea, but she would like to have known more about it.
The legion also sells a larger collection of items at poppystore.ca.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
