The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Special: important thoughts about Remembrance Day.

Episode Date: November 10, 2019

Thanks for subscribing and for submitting a rating and review! * TWITTER @petermansbridge | INSTAGRAM @thepetermansbridge ** https://www.thepetermansbridge.com/ *** Producer: Manscorp Media Services

Hello there, Peter Mansbridge here with The Bridge, a special edition today as we prepare ourselves for Remembrance Day 2019. I have some thoughts on this, on this year. At a few minutes before 11 on Monday morning, I'll walk the short distance to the War Memorial here in my small hometown of Stratford, Ontario. There's a good solid early winter chill in the air this year, and there's snow on the ground. The past few years we've been spoiled. Late fall skies, fairly warm temperatures and colorful leaves still in the trees but not so this year. But that won't stop the people. People of all walks of life, from all backgrounds, of all ages. There will almost certainly be

about a thousand people there, a scene played out in cities and towns big and small right across the country. For years, as some of you may remember, I spent Remembrance Day at the National War Memorial in Ottawa with much bigger crowds and all the dignitaries you can imagine. But on every November 11th broadcast, I'd remind people across the country that there were ceremonies just as important and just as emotional happening in their own hometowns. The veterans, the crowds, the pipe bands, the local dignitaries. They may have been fewer,

but the dedication to the memory of those men and women who had served was no different. You know, like thousands of other Canadians, I've toured many of the battlefields in Europe where Canadians fought and where so many thousands died. They're buried in war cemeteries across the various countries where they engaged the enemy. When you enter those cemeteries, they are a very special privilege.

You're on hallowed ground. You can use the burial markers as a backdrop as you put yourself on camera. I've done that many times for special programs, teaching Canadians what other generations have contributed to the world in which they live. Or you can do something else, which I have done as well, many times and in many places. You can study the story carved into those markers. The story is one of a nation that sent its best to fight a vicious enemy. Its best. From little prairie towns and big urban centers.

From law offices and dental clinics. Coal mines and oil fields., hockey arenas and football fields, MPs' offices and teachers' desks. They were of all colors, from all cultures and all religions, all of them. The notion that they were all white is not only dangerously wrong, it's an insult to those thousands who lie in the ground in France and Belgium and the Netherlands and Germany and Italy and so many other places. A simple maple leaf stands above their remains. They are Canadian.

They volunteered as Canadians. They fought as Canadians. They died as Canadians. And we will remember them all as Canadians, just as we remember all those of all backgrounds who continue to serve their country, some of whom were born here, some of whom arrived as new Canadians. To say otherwise is not to understand the country in which you live. Thanks for listening on this day, and please remember.