On Wednesday, at 11 a.m.— the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month — we are asked to pause what we are doing and, for two minutes, remember in silence the supreme sacrifice of our fellow citizens who served our nation in war.
While Remembrance Day ceremonies will understandably be much smaller this year because of the COVID-19 pandemic, it is this simple act of remembrance that fulfils our obligation.
The time of 11:00 a.m. marks the signing of the armistice that ended the First World War, 102 years ago.
That conflict, in which 66,000 Canadians died in the fighting, was supposed to be the war to end all wars.
But it was not to be.
So today, weremember not only them, but the 47,000 Canadians who died in the Second World War, the 516 who diedin the Korean War, the 158 who died in the Afghanistan War and the 130 who have died on peacekeeping missions around the world.
We remember, as well, the more than 200,000 Canadians wounded in these conflicts.
Our purpose is not to glorify war.
War is the most terrible of human endeavours, that we must always strive to avoid, unless there is no other choice to defend our freedoms.
Our war veterans — who we also honour today and whose ranks thin year after year — do not glorify war.
They are in fact our greatest living ambassadors for peace, because they know war is hell on earth and must always be the last resort when conflict looms, never the first.
The red poppy we wear today, by making a small donation to the Royal Canadian Legion to help support today’s veterans, is not a political statement.
It’s the symbol of our remembrance for those who served us in war, its deep red colour reminding us of war’s terrible cost, of the blood it spills and the lives it changes forever.
It reminds us, too, of the moral obligation we all have to see that members of our armed forces and their families are properly cared for today, with decent pensions and benefits.