VIDEO ABOVE: Pallbearers bring in the casket of WWII vet Ernest Cote as he is laid to rest in Ottawa.
OTTAWA – One of Canada’s better known D-Day veterans and diplomats was laid to rest today amid remembrance of an extraordinary life that was lived at the centre of some of the country’s most important events in the last century.
Ernest Côté died last week at the age of 101.
READ MORE: ‘He was serving Canada’: Daughter remembers Second World War veteran Ernest Côté
His daughter, Denyse, described him as “an old school gentleman” who belonged to the generation of men who were always impeccably dressed and gracious, but also someone that didn’t tolerate foolishness or cruelty.
As a lieutenant-colonel in the army during the Second World War, Cote was involved in planning the invasion of Normandy, but later went on to have a distinguished career in public service, including deputy solicitor general during the FLQ crisis and a stint as ambassador to Finland in the mid-1970s.
Many Canadians came to know him more recently when he survived a home invasion at his Ottawa condominium last December during which he was tied up and had a plastic bag placed over his head.
He managed to free himself without suffering any serious injury, and was later lauded by Prime Minister Stephen Harper as a true Canadian hero.
Côté’s alleged attacker, 59-year old Ian Bush is charged with attempted murder, but DNA evidence recovered at the scene led police to charge him with murder in an unsolved 2007 triple homicide.
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