The mood was somber as young and old assembled at Heroes Park in the Montreal West Island suburb of Beaconsfield for the annual Remembrance Day ceremony. It was the first one in three years due to the pandemic.
“We need to remember our veterans around this time of the year,” pointed out retired Major Richard Gratton. He is the chair of the Heroes Committee, which organized the event.
It was one of several such gatherings in communities around Montreal on Saturday before Remembrance Day on Nov. 11.
Saturday’s event honoured armed forces personnel and those who died in service.
“I’ve served with a lot of military people around the world and it is very important that we remember their sacrifice,” said former United Nations contractor Cornelius Campbell after the ceremony in Beaconsfield.
For some, like Gratton, it was a time to reflect on what is happening in the world, including in Ukraine.
“I can’t believe that we have a war in Europe at this time, in this age,” Gratton told Global News.
He and Quebec Liberal Party MNA Gregory Kelley are cautioning that Canadians should not take democracy for granted.
“It seems the world is in such a fragile place,” Gratton pointed out, “that some of those echoes of what we saw in the 1930s are very much back in the forefront of what’s going on in the world.”
He mentioned the politics in the United States and what he sees as threats to democracy there.
“Trying to restrict voting rights, trying to really erode the institutions of democracy in the United States, questioning whether or not elections are valid,” he said. “That is very troubling.”