Standing Up for Canada by Stepping Up

Inspiration from a 101year-old Veteran on Canada Day

Sunset on Canada Day was extra special for me this year. Not only was it the conclusion of my last events as the Member of Parliament for Durham, but the sun was also setting on my time in public life. It seems like only yesterday that I was wheeling Jack up to Parliament in his stroller for my swearing in on a chilly December day in 2012. In the last few weeks, so many people in my community told me how much they have enjoyed watching Mollie and Jack grow up on our annual Christmas card or at public events. I also received so many kind cards, emails and notes from people who wanted to thank Rebecca and the family for our service. Most were notes from strangers. These messages have meant a lot to our family.

Canada Day was also a stark reminder of how special our country is and how fortunate we are as Canadians. The first event of the day brought this into focus. Port Perry begins its Canada Day festivities each year by paying tribute to those who served and sacrificed for Canada. They hold a Veterans Parade down the main street to the opening ceremonies for Canada Day in the park on the picturesque shores of Lake Scugog. This year, the oldest Veteran in the parade was 101 year-old Stewart Bray. Seeing Stewart grip his chair as he struggled to stand at attention for the singing of our national anthem was very moving. It brought back some wonderful memories of my time with Stewart and some of the other remarkable Canadian Veterans - young and old - that I have had the privilege to meet in my public life.

I first met Stewart in 2016 when he was honoured by France alongside other WWII Veterans in Port Perry. The French government awarded their highest state decoration - the Legion of Honour - to all remaining Veterans of the Normandy campaign. There were four Veterans in the area eligible to receive the medal and I wanted to make it very special for them, so I invited a French military attaché to make the presentations on behalf of France at the local library. This charming French officer made quite the impression on this small Canadian town. He was very tall and his imposing French military chapeau had him towering over the veterans as he pinned the distinctive medal on their blazers. His manner and la bise cheek kisses had everyone in the room buzzing. It was as if we were whisked off to post-war Paris for just a moment. His remarks that day also reminded all of us that most Canadians will never truly appreciate liberty in the same way that citizens of countries who have been occupied by invaders do. The French, the Dutch, the Koreans continue to have a deep and abiding respect for Canada because our citizens left their families to liberate strangers in foreign lands in the name of freedom. To that French officer, these old warriors were the towering figures in the library that day. They had given his parents and millions of other French families their freedom. Freedom regained for the French through Canadian sacrifice.

At the end of my Canada Day activities, I pulled up the photos from that special day. It brought a smile to my face with the memories of the ceremony, but it was also a little sad because time is catching up with the greatest generation. Of the four Veterans in the photo from that day, only two are still with us. Stewart (beside the French officer) and my friend George Emmerson (beside me). George is now 100 years old and quite frail. He can no longer attend the Veterans parade as he did years before. George became well known locally for his remarkable war story of helping a Dutch prisoner during the liberation of the Netherlands only to be reunited with him by a stroke of luck almost 70 years later. It was one of the heartwarming stories featured on TV and print during Remembrance Week in 2014. A year later as Veterans Minister, I asked George and his son Larry to accompany the Canadian delegation to the Netherlands, as we were taking 70 Veterans overseas for the 70th Anniversary of the liberation. The Dutch treated them like the heroes that they are for liberating that country. Freedom regained for the Netherlands through Canadian sacrifice.

I also had the privilege to pay special tribute to one of the other Veterans in that photo. Ed Groves served in the later part of the Normandy campaign after he had finished his service with the iconic First Special Service Force (FSSF). The FSSF was also known as the Devil’s Brigade, as it was a much-feared commando unit of American and Canadian soldiers who trained and fought together in WWII. I participated in the presentation of the Congressional Gold Medal in Washington as Veterans Minister, and later presented replica medals to some of the Canadian FSSF veterans who were unable to travel to the United States for the event. I presented one of these medals to Ed in a service at my own Legion in Bowmanville. Like so many Canadian Veterans, Ed Groves was so modest about his wartime service. He would shrug and say ‘I did what any man would do’ and downplayed his service in this exceptional unit, which was the forerunner to the storied special operations regiments of today like the JTF-2 in Canada and the Green Berets in the United States. Canadians and Americans serving together for freedom far from our shores.

So many incredible Veterans from that generation have passed on and those who are left are in their late 90s or 100s. Seeing Stewart on Canada Day reminded me that we are not only losing a generation of heroes as they pass on, but I fear that we may also be losing our connection with our national ethos of putting service to a higher purpose ahead of ones self. I often wonder whether we would see the same national response to a call for service in Canada if we were under threat today. Would we have hundreds of thousands of our citizens respond swiftly to the call of duty like Stewart, George, Ed and thousands of other Canadians did in their time? This is something our country must ponder as we watch our friends in Ukraine fight for their land and their identity against a Russian invasion.

We must also ponder these questions as we watch democracy in retreat in many parts of the world and as polarization in western democracies rises. The current environment makes it hard to imagine that we could pull off a national mobilization where millions are willing to put the liberty of others ahead of their own well-being. Trust in politicians and our institutions is eroding and those parts of our social fabric used to be central to the call to service. ‘For King and Country’ would likely not resonate in the same way it did in the past, so we must work hard to foster pride in our country and a connection with the generations that came before. Far too many people attack and cancel our history without even attempting to understand it. Symbols, mottos and even our national anthem seem to be replaceable without serious consideration. And the incessant focus on our failings and where we fall short as a country is making it difficult to inspire others to put the country first.

To ensure that we have a sense of Canadian pride and purpose we should ensure that our history is understood for both the good and bad and that more stories from more perspectives are part of our national history. We should ensure that our military and civic heritage is appreciated and that service to others remains a noble pursuit. We must find news ways for more Canadians to connect their civic or cultural pride with our national story and constantly rededicate ourselves to making Canada better. To borrow from the Americans, we must strive to build a more perfect confederation and in the process we will build a more united country.

And far too many people are casually tossing around words like freedom, liberty and sacrifice in political debates in our country and that is leading to a disconnect with our past as well. This is particularly the case on social media when they are used as rallying cries against health measures or even simple courtesies like wearing a mask. The better we understand our past the more we will recognize that many of our political differences today are petty when compared with our past. Perhaps we need more images from Bény-sur-Mer, Groesbeek or Sai Wan on social media to underscore the true meaning of these words. The silence of those hallowed places says far more about liberty than anything that might trend on Twitter.

So my Stewart Bray-inspired Canada Day message to my constituents was a simple one. Our Veterans fought for our liberty so that we could have the freedom to do what we want to do today. We can continue to focus on ourselves and complain about the small things that seem to divide us, or we can step up for our country today by helping others. The ranks of the Legions across Canada are shrinking and in need of fresh recruits. Who will lay the wreaths to remember our fallen at the cenotaphs of the nation if we run out of volunteers? Rotary Clubs, Lions Clubs and countless other fraternal, civic and faith-based organizations are also seeing their numbers dwindle from one generation to the next. These organizations are the backbones of local efforts to combat homelessness, poverty, domestic violence, human trafficking and other challenges facing our communities and we need more people to step up and volunteer. It is easy to feel overwhelmed by these issues, but little platoons of compassion and volunteerism can be the fight we take to our country’s challenges today.

We are so fortunate that we will likely never know the feeling of an occupation of our country by a foreign invader. We may never have to enlist our citizenry to defend our country from invasion. These are incredible blessings that we must celebrate, but we must also not lose sight of what we owe to Stewart’s generation. Our tribute to them must be our embrace of freedom by mobilizing it to serve the higher purpose of our community and our country. God Bless Canada.