Archive for July, 2009

Nova Scotia Opts For Change Following the example of the dominion convention in Ottawa last year, Nova Scotia/Nunavut Command adopted a new structure and a reduction in the number of people making up its Provincial Executive Council when delegates met in Dartmouth for the 49th convention, May 17-19. Former president Clarence Dawe was chosen to be the one to take delegates through a six-page document arguing for the restructuring formula that had been endorsed by the executive committee the day before the convention started. Dawe was elected as the Dominion Executive Council representative at the 2007 convention. However, that position was eliminated [...]

Service The Focus At Quebec Convention After three conventions marked by massive change, controversy and election upsets, peace reigned at the 53rd Quebec Command convention May 15-17 in Granby. “These three days should be three days of comradeship,” said outgoing Quebec Command President Annette Arsenault, a message echoed by Dominion First Vice President Pat Varga, bringing greetings on behalf of Dominion President Wilf Edmond. Varga began by asking Second World War veterans to stand; then, one by one, she brought to their feet veterans of the Korean War, the Gulf War, peacekeepers, veterans of peacetime service, reservists or militia members, Afghanistan veterans and [...]

Exhausted and despairing of the endless carnage being brought into his makeshift operating room, then Major John McCrae of the Canadian Army Medical Corps was doing his best to keep the wounded alive during the fierce fighting of the Second Battle of Ypres. McCrae was no stranger to war. A true patriot of the British Empire, he served in South Africa during the Boer War as an artillery officer. Though he still loved the artillery, McCrae was now a doctor and called upon to serve where his expertise was needed. On May 2, 1915, word reached him that a friend, Lieutenant [...]

It was a hair-raising finish to the Dominion Command Darts Championship at Men of Vision Branch in Cochrane, Alta., May 1-3 as two teams with veteran players who had come to the championship several times, but never won, came face-to-face in a playoff. The lead had see-sawed back and forth all day, and with one round to go, the Nova Scotia/Nunavut team of David Cameron, Lewis Francis, Mark MacIsaac and William MacIsaac from Calais Branch in Lower Sackville had 18 points. One point behind was the Quebec team of Jerry Hull, Sebastien Gagnon, Jason Hurley and Kevin MacArthur from LaSalle Branch. [...]

The Flanders poppy has been the most recognized symbol of remembrance for the last 90 years, and so one would expect to find the scarlet flower proliferating in the over 13,000 artworks in the collection of the Canadian War Museum. Instead, images of the poppy are surprisingly rare. Perhaps Canadian artists were not present when the poppies bloomed like blood on the battlefields after the First and Second World Wars, or perhaps the flower’s significance was not broadly understood until the wars ended. But if you look, you will find it flowering in a dozen works or so, and in a [...]

The Halifax and Region Military Family Resource Centre (MFRC) has teamed up with The Royal Canadian Legion to open both of their doors, phone lines, websites and in-boxes to a whole new crop of military families. Since 2006, the MFRC has hosted a twice-yearly series of family awareness sessions at Legion branches around the province, reaching out to small communities to raise awareness about the military family services available. Bernie Mullin-Splude, the MFRC’s outreach co-ordinator, says “The Legion is the community centre in most small towns in this province. And since we both do the same kind of work—support for serving and [...]

Ontario Command Accepts Sweeping Bylaw Changes It was a time of sweeping change at the Ontario Command 46th convention held May 9-13 in Burlington. In addition to the adoption of a comprehensive new set of branch bylaws, the elections process revealed a vastly changed command executive. While Ed Pigeau of Thessalon Branch took his seat as the newly elected president, it was Andre Paquette of Harry Searle Branch in Chapleau who carried the day to become Ontario’s new first vice president. Joining them are three new faces in the position of vice president—Brian Smith, Brian Weaver and Bruce Julian—and a new honorary [...]

Blasts from artillery and mines during the First World War churned up the earth so much that none of the usual mix of crops and vegetation had a chance to grow. Yet out of that turmoil a determined wildflower, the poppy, began to flourish. Its colour reminded soldiers of the blood lost on that very ground, and inspired Canadian John McCrae to write his famous poem, In Flanders Fields. That poem, in turn, became the inspiration for The Royal Canadian Legion poppy campaign as we know it today. Each year in the two weeks leading up to Remembrance Day, some 19 [...]

They don’t much like the James Bond characterization, these undercover Canadian soldiers. In fact, they reject it. But then you kind of expect that they would. If they were the kind of people to revel in the drama of covert operations, well, they probably wouldn’t be in the Canadian Special Operations Regiment (CSOR), discreetly deployed to Jamaica to help train a special operations unit of the Jamaica Defence Force (JDF). Regardless, the cloak-and-dagger aspect can’t be ignored: a plain synopsis of what they do sounds like it’s lifted straight from a Hollywood script. If you’ve ever seen a movie where fit-looking westerners dash across [...]

The one place James Kay does not look when playing serious cribbage is at the scoreboard. “If you start doing that then you start being cautious and I don’t want to play that way,” said the Port Coquitlam, B.C.,  Branch member who found himself defending his 2008 cribbage singles championship title at this year’s Dominion Command Cribbage Championships held April 23-25 at Aldergrove Branch in British Columbia’s Lower Fraser Valley. Kay had successfully moved through provincial playoffs to once again be representing British Columbia/Yukon Command in the tournament which would see 10 teams gather in the branch for the exciting tournament to [...]