COLUMN: Editorial – Remembering war to bring about peace

On Nov. 11, people will attend Remembrance Day ceremonies held across Canada, including many cities, towns and villages right here in Manitoba.

It’s a tradition that extends back to the close of the First World War.

The armistice agreement was signed between Germany and the allied forces in Paris on Nov. 11, 1918, at 5 a.m. The ceasefire that followed came into effect at 11 a.m. the same morning on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month.

According to the Government of Canada website, the first Armistice Day was observed in 1919.

A letter from King George V, read in the House of Commons on Nov. 6, 1919 by acting Prime Minister Sir George Foster expressed the King’s desire for a time of solemn remembrance.

“To afford an opportunity for the universal expression of this feeling it is my desire and hope that at the hour when the Armistice came into force, the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, there may be for the brief space of two minutes, a complete suspension of all our normal activities,” King George V wrote. “During that time, except in rare cases where this may be impractical, all work, all sound and all locomotion should cease, so that in perfect stillness the thoughts of everyone may be concentrated on reverent remembrance of the glorious dead.”

Armistice Day became Remembrance Day in 1941.

Numbers were high at those early ceremonies.

Those who grew up in the 1980s or earlier can remember the large group of Second World War veterans, the smaller group of First World War veterans and the smaller contingent of Korean War veterans that would solemnly march in.

We saw the tears in the eyes of the veterans, saw communities come together and felt very much a sense of loss coupled with pride at Canada’s contribution, counted in the numbers on cenotaphs in every hamlet, village and town throughout the province.

Those veterans are less visible today.

Veterans Affairs Canada says 1.1 million Canadians served in the Second World War.

In 2025, they estimated that approximately 3,700 were still alive.

Yet the community halls across the province are still filled with those eager to take part in the annual ceremony.

In Steinbach for example, the Southeast Event Centre will be used for the first time to host the gathering after the ceremony repeatedly packed the Pat Porter Active Living Centre in recent years.

Poppy sales continue to be strong, and there seems to be no sign of that ending even as we’ve exceeded 100 years since the First World War armistice was signed.

Carleton University published a piece prepared by Veterans Affairs on why and how we remember every year.

The piece itself is worth a read for anyone looking to brush up on their Remembrance Day knowledge, or others such as newcomers that want to learn more.

It endeavors to describe why we should remember and starts with a quote from a book called A Terrible Beauty, The Art of Canada at War, written by Heather Robertson and published in 1977.

“We must remember. If we do not, the sacrifice of those 100,000 Canadian lives will be meaningless. They died for us, for their homes and families and friends, for a collection of traditions they cherished and a future they believed in; they died for Canada. The meaning of their sacrifice rests with our collective national consciousness; our future is their monument,” she wrote.

There’s another reason to remember those who fought and sacrificed.

And that’s the desire to see wars end.

While the anti-war movement doesn’t always have a good reputation around Remembrance Day, it’s their tactics more than their sentiment that earns that reputation.

Loudly condemning war and those who fight simply should not be part of a day set aside to recognize the sacrifices.

But it’s also worth noting that those who dream of the end of wars are often those who took part in them, either as combatants or civilians.

Donald Pearce, who in 1965 published a book called Journal of War: North-West Europe, 1944-1945, wrote the following while sitting in a front-line dugout in the Second World War.

“When will it all end? The idiocy and the tension, the dying of young men, the destruction of homes, of cities, starvation, exhaustion, disease, children parentless and lost, cages full of shivering, starving prisoners, long lines of civilians plodding through mud, the endless pounding of the battleline.”

That question can still be asked today.

By honouring those who served and remembering the sacrifice, we are taking the first step to ending wars in the future.

We will remember them.