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ST. JOHN’S, N.L. – Hundreds lined the streets at the National War Memorial in downtown St. John’s on Monday, bowing their heads as a cannon blast signalled the start of two minutes of silence to honour the country’s departed veterans.

David Moore was in awe at the sheer size of the crowd. His father fought in the Second World War with the 166th Newfoundland Field Regiment and later in the Korean War, and Moore lays a wreath for him every year at the city’s Remembrance Day ceremony.

Moore, 77, said his father never spoke about his time in the military. “And he never went to any of the ceremonies,” he said in an interview. “I tried to talk him into it, but he didn’t go to the legions, and he never, ever mentioned it to any of us … he never even wore his medals.”

Moore wondered if the massive crowd in St. John’s on Monday, and the newly refurbished National War Memorial monument, would have changed the mind of his father, who died of cancer at the age of 60.

The ceremony was the first to take place alongside the tomb of an unknown Newfoundland Regiment soldier who died in battle in France during the First World War and was reinterred at the National War Memorial earlier this year.

Morgan MacDonald, the sculptor who made the bronze forget-me-not flowers decorating the soldier’s tomb, attended Monday’s events in part to honour his great-grandfather, who also fought with the Newfoundland Regiment.

“It’s an incredibly special and moving thing to be entrusted with,” MacDonald said about being asked to create the flowers.” Just to be selected to do that is a very special thing for my family, and my brothers and my parents, just to know that I had that small role to play in this whole ceremony, which is so important to the people of the province.”

In Halifax, a few hundred people gathered around the downtown cenotaph in rain and high winds, many in raincoats or carrying umbrellas. The event began with a ceremonial smudging from Mi’kmaq elder Marlene Companion.

Joanne Geddes, district commander of the Nova Scotia and Nunavut legions, said she was touched that many Nova Scotians braved the stormy weather to pay their respects.

Hearing the bands play and the cannons ring out gave her chills, Geddes said.

“I get goosebumps. I well up. It’s emotional in a good way, in a sad way,” she said. “It just warms the heart to know that people will still come out to honour and pay tribute to those who paid the ultimate sacrifice, and to those that are still serving.”

Remembrance Day events were also held in Charlottetown, in front of Province House, and in Fredericton, at the downtown cenotaph.

In St. John’s, Moore laid a green wreath bearing his father’s name at the foot of the National War Memorial, before its towering bronze statue of a woman holding aloft a flaming torch. He then stood straight, looked up at the statue and raised his hand to his head in a firm salute.

“It’s very important to do this and continue to do it as long as I can,” he said. “Not only for my father … but for all those men and women who served and those who gave their lives. It’s an important day for all of us. I’ve yet to miss one … and I’ll do it as long as I can.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 11, 2024.

— With files from Lyndsay Armstrong in Halifax

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

MONTREAL – Private Martine Roy was only 20 years old in 1984 when she was arrested, interrogated and dismissed from the Canadian Armed Forces for being what was then termed a “sexual deviant.”

After fighting for the right to be recognized as a veteran, she laid a wreath at Montreal’s Remembrance Day ceremony Monday on behalf of survivors of the wave of persecution that has become known as the LGBT Purge.

“I was arrested twice, then sent to a psychiatrist and then finally dismissed,” she said of her experience. “That was really, really hard for me.”

Roy was one of the lead plaintiffs in a class-action lawsuit that led to a $145-million settlement and a 2017 federal apology for decades of discrimination against members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities.

According to the website of the LGBT Purge Fund, between the 1950s and mid-1990s, LGBTQ+ members of the Armed Forces, the RCMP and the federal public service were followed, interrogated, abused, traumatized and often fired “as a matter of policy and sanctioned practice.”

Roy, a Montreal native, enlisted in 1983 to become a medical assistant. After a stint in Quebec she was sent to Borden, Ont., where she was arrested the first time after someone found out she was dating women as well as men.

While she was allowed to finish her course and move to the now-closed National Defence Medical Centre in Ottawa, she was arrested a second time and discharged in December 1984.

She said her removal from the Armed Forces at such a young age affected every aspect of her life, and she struggled for years with shame, drug use and fear that she would be subjected to further discrimination in the workplace.

“I was 20, I didn’t know if I was gay or not. I don’t think it was important at that moment,” she said. “So kicking me out like this, I didn’t want to tell anybody. I was ashamed.”

She said the trauma went so deep that she didn’t return to Ottawa until 2014. For years, she and others like her weren’t recognized as veterans at all.

Over time, Roy went on to have a stable career and became an advocate for LGBTQ+ rights and better inclusion in the workplace. She began to feel like the federal government’s decision to reverse its official policy of discrimination in 1992 wasn’t enough.

That’s when she got involved in the class action and, later, as a board member for the LGBT Purge Fund. In 2023, she was appointed a member of the Order of Canada for her decades of advocacy for diversity, inclusion and equity.

On Monday, under drizzly skies, Roy joined Premier François Legault and other dignitaries who gathered at a downtown square for Montreal’s Remembrance Day ceremony. She laid a wreath on behalf of LGBTQ+ veterans alongside fellow purge survivor Peggy Hayes.

Roy said attending Remembrance Day ceremonies allows her to feel like a part of the military as a veteran, and to commemorate others who had similar experiences but are no longer living.

Laying wreaths is meaningful, she said, “because we are important, and the queer people that fought for Canada are important.”

She said that for many purge survivors, memories of service is “kind of a double thing:” a mixture of pride over serving their country, and the knowledge that they were let go for something that had nothing to do with skills.

“We did that to over 9,000 people,” she said of the purge. “We destroyed their family and their life, so this is why today is so important.”

She said some of the money from the court settlement is being used for initiatives that honour the contribution of Canada’s LGBTQ+ veterans, including a monument in Ottawa dedicated to purge survivors. The LGBT Purge Fund is also collecting and preserving records of the purge, working on an exhibition at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights in Winnipeg and making recommendations on how to improve LGBTQ+ inclusion in the public service.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 11, 2024.

OTTAWA – An echoing peal of cannon fire signalled the start of a moment of silence Monday in St. John’s, N.L., and throngs of people along the city’s two main downtown streets fell quiet and bowed their heads.

Across Canada, dignitaries marked Remembrance Day by laying wreaths at ceremonies, schoolchildren sang in the late fall chill and veterans recalled the horrors of battle.

Canadians gathered in cities and towns to honour the sacrifice of men and women in uniform who gave their lives in service of the country’s values and principles.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Gov. Gen. Mary Simon paid their respects in a ceremony at the National War Memorial in Ottawa.

They were joined by this year’s Silver Cross Mother, Maureen Anderson of New Brunswick, whose two sons served in Afghanistan.

Sgt. Ron Anderson and Sgt. Ryan Anderson each died after a battle with post-traumatic stress disorder. Their mother represented all the mothers left behind by service members killed in the line of duty.

The mournful sound of the Last Post was heard at cenotaphs and monuments as Canadians took a moment at 11 a.m. to pay silent respects to the fallen.

“Throughout our history, the men and women of the Canadian Armed Forces have kept our country safe,” Trudeau said in a social media post before the Ottawa ceremony.

“Some returned home from the battlefield and were never the same. Others never returned at all. It is a debt we can never repay, and one we will never forget.”

Veterans Affairs Canada estimates the current Canadian war veteran population at 7,300 people — 6,142 men and 1,158 women — based on 2021 census data.

Royal Canadian Legion president Berkley Lawrence, 70, said the day gives people a “chance to remember what happened, how we get our freedom today.”

It was the first Remembrance Day in St. John’s to be held at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. The soldier fought and died in France during the First World War, and was reinterred in Newfoundland this year.

Sculptor Morgan MacDonald, who made the bronze forget-me-not flowers that decorate the tomb, said it was an honour to be given such important work.

Joanne Geddes, district commander of the Nova Scotia and Nunavut legions, said she was touched to see how many people of all ages turned up despite wind and rain at the cenotaph in Halifax’s Grand Parade.

Hearing the bands play and the cannons ring out brought on chills, Geddes said. “I get goosebumps. I well up. It’s emotional in a good way, in a sad way.”

Paul Baiden, who served during the Cold War era, said he was thinking of mates from aircraft carrier HMCS Bonaventure “and everybody, basically, that lost their lives.”

“Every day my group gets smaller,” he said in Ottawa as a tear formed in his eye. “From our crew … there’s maybe 20 of us left.”

In the national capital, the sunny sky turned grey and light rain fell, matching the solemn mood.

Ninety-eight-year-old John Preece, who was a private in the Second World War, said it is difficult to explain what it’s like to be in combat. “When you face somebody shooting at you, and you don’t even know them and they don’t know you. And it’s not very nice, and that’s all I can say. It’s really a terrible scene.”

John Young, a retired chief warrant officer, asked that Canadians think of troops in Latvia who have left behind spouses and children — and all the high school and kindergarten graduations they will miss.

“This is the commitment that people who wear the uniform have agreed to willingly,” said Young, 66.

“I reflect on my own mother. I have no idea of the angst that she went through when both my brother and I were deployed at the same time. In her later years, she said, ‘I didn’t sleep when you guys were gone.'”

Each cannon boom from a 21-gun salute set off a wave of car alarms in Montreal during a ceremony held in English, French and occasionally Mohawk.

Matthew Krisko-MacCormack brought a photo of his grandfather, First World War veteran Joseph MacCormack. He said he was thinking of people like his grandfather, who left his small P.E.I. farming community to defend home and country, and who later died as a result of injuries he suffered overseas.

Honorary Lt.-Gen. Richard Rohmer helped lead ceremonies at the Ontario Veterans’ Memorial outside Queen’s Park in Toronto.

The 100-year-old Rohmer told the crowd about his role helping to end the Second World War as a reconnaissance fighter pilot, taking out a key bridge in the Netherlands that trapped German forces in May 1945.

Unable to cross the river, the Germans surrendered, he recalled.

“I’m just lucky to be alive.”

In Edmonton, an 11-piece pipe band’s rendition of “Highland Cathedral” echoed through city hall.

Remembrance Day “is not just about speeches,” said Lt.-Col. Bryn Wright, commanding officer of the Loyal Edmonton Regiment.

“It’s about reflection on where we came from and what our history is, and it’s about remembering those who served and fell and remembering those who continue to serve.”

Neil Dancer, a retired corporal who spent time in Afghanistan with the 3rd Battalion of Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry, said he was heartened to see a lot of young people turn out Monday in Victoria.

Military service has taken a toll on Dancer, but he looks ahead to better days. “I have my challenges with mental health, like a lot of veterans do, but I can’t complain. I have a lot of friends who are in worse situations and shape than I am.”

Among those gathered at the Victory Square Cenotaph in Vancouver was Percival Smith, 101, a veteran of the British Merchant Navy who said he was “all over the place” during the Second World War.

“I went in as a boy at 17 and came out as a man at 22,” he said. “The world was quite different.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 11, 2024.

— With files from Sarah Smellie in St. John’s, N.L., Lyndsay Armstrong in Halifax, Morgan Lowrie in Montreal, Liam Casey in Toronto, Kyle Duggan and David Baxter in Ottawa, Aaron Sousa in Edmonton, Darryl Greer in Vancouver and Dirk Meissner in Victoria

Note to readers: This is a corrected story. An earlier version identified Richard Rohmer as a former lieutenant governor.