It’s fair to say that, no matter where you turn in the Canadian Armed Forces, you inevitably bump into Queen Elizabeth.
She was (and in some cases will continue to be, for the foreseeable future) almost everywhere within the military.
From portraits, prefixes and designations to oaths and honours, the military footprint of the Commonwealth’s longest-reigning monarch will not fade away quickly. Amending those royal honours for a post-Elizabeth military requires a whole series of changes.
Some of those changes will be easy and automatic, while others will be more complicated and may take years to work out, said Lt.-Col. Carl Gauthier. He leads the Directorate of Honours and Recognition at the Department of National Defence.
As most Canadians wonder when the face of King Charles will adorn the $20 bill, the military is mourning the loss of the personal interest the late monarch took in individual units and soldiers — the quiet, behind-the-scenes gestures and words of encouragement she offered over the years.
The Queen was colonel-in-chief — the ceremonial head — of 16 different military units in this country. That’s an extraordinary number given the relatively small size of Canada’s armed forces.
Members of those regiments make up the Canadian military contingent — 95 soldiers, sailors and aircrew — that will be present at her funeral in London on Monday.
‘She represents who we are’
“We always toast to the Queen,” said Cpl. Raquel Bitton, a member of the Montreal-based Canadian Grenadier Guards and part of the contingent attending the funeral.
“We have her picture in our regiment as we walk into our mess. You know, it’s all about the Queen. So I mean, she represents who we are. It’s part of our identity and something we’re very proud of.”
Bitton said the Queen’s passing is “a great loss” because of what was accomplished during her reign. She said it’s ” truly an honour” to be present at her funeral.
Gauthier said the Queen has been patron of some Canadian regiments for over 70 years, beginning when she was still a princess.
Queen Elizabeth walks past the Canadian armed guard during her closing departure ceremony at Queen’s Park in Toronto on July 6, 2010. (Nathan Denette/The Canadian Press)
She was, he said, quite active behind the scenes.
“The Queen used to basically meet with the command team of each regiment,” Gauthier said.
“Even if she didn’t visit Canada, they could go and have an audience at Buckingham Palace or elsewhere.”
Such visits, he said, tended to be short and focused.
“The Queen would want to know what’s going on with the unit,” he said. “Are they deploying people to operations? Have there been casualties? Are the significant changes happening with the units?”
Whenever the Queen was in Canada, tour organizers always set aside time for her to spend with members of the military. During the Afghan war, she met privately with some families of the fallen.
All of those gestures deeply touched members of the tight-knit military community, said Gauthier.
Now, each unit will have to decide who among the Royal Family they want to have representing them.
Prince Charles, centre left, receives a hoodie and cap during a review of the Canadian Rangers in Yellowknife during the Royal Tour of Canada on May 19. (Paul Chiasson/The Canadian Press)
King Charles III holds a handful of ceremonial posts within the Canadian military. Gauthier, who was an aide to the then-Prince of Wales during his visit to Canada in 2009, said the new monarch also displayed a personal touch.
At a meeting in Montreal with the family of a soldier killed in Afghanistan who was a reservist from the Royal Highland Regiment of Canada (the Black Watch), the mother of the fallen soldier — touched by Charles’s words — asked if she could hug him.
Without hesitation, Charles abandoned the protocol — which says he must not be touched — and embraced the grieving woman, said Gauthier, who was present for the private meeting.
On one other occasion, Gauthier said, Charles sent a bottle of Scotch to a wounded soldier.
‘They don’t just want to be a name on the letterhead’
“I know the [former] Prince of Wales was asking me when I was [aide] to make sure that the [commanding officers] write to him,” he said. “He wanted to know. They don’t want to be just a name on the letterhead … they want to be involved, they want to be informed.”
The Queen was patron of a number of regiments across the Commonwealth and finding new ones among the Royal Family will be a years-long process, Gauthier said.
Similarly, the Queen’s image, or insignia, adorns many of Canada’s military medals, including those for heroism. They will have to be changed as well.
“It will take some time for the King to approve any effigy and new cipher, so we can modify the designs and manufacture metals,” said Gauthier. “In the meantime, we will continue to issue medals with Her Majesty’s effigy, until such a time a new insignia is available.”
Changing the designation of Canadian warships — such as HMCS Halifax, pictured here — was a relatively simple affair. (Andrew Vaughan/The Canadian Press)
Other aspects of the Queen’s presence in military life are more easily changed. The designation of His Majesty’s Canadian Ship (HMCS), as opposed to Her Majesty’s Canadian Ship, was pretty much automatic. So was changing the oath of allegiance that members of the military swear upon enrolment.
Veteran diplomat and foreign affairs commentator Colin Robertson said the outpouring of sadness over the Queen’s passing is an interesting moment. He pointed to how Canadian governments in the 1960s and 70s tried to put an more independent stamp on the military, distancing Canada from its British colonial roots with the amalgamation of the branches into the Canadian Forces (later the Canadian Armed Forces).
“I think there was a sense that the Queen represented the British connection, in the sense of empire and colonialism … certain governments felt that that was not, that was not where Canada was,” Robertson said.
The feeling at the time, he said, was that “Canada was an independent nation and that our constitutional monarchy was a system of government, but the emphasis was the Constitution and less on the monarchy.”
Both the air force and the navy lost their “Royal” designations during this period — only to have them restored under the Conservative government of Stephen Harper.
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.
