Follow live coverage of the National Remembrance Day service from Ottawa's National War Memorial: Thursday, Nov. 11 at 10:30am ET / 7:30am PT
The Canadian flag atop the Peace Tower and at federal buildings across Canada will be at full-mast ahead of Remembrance Day, after flying at half-mast since May 30 to commemorate the identification of unmarked remains linked to the residential school system.
Flags were raised at sunset on Nov. 7, lowered the following morning to mark Indigenous Veterans Day, and raised again at sunset on Nov. 8.
REMEMBRANCE AND THE FIRST WORLD WAR
(ANNOTATED) HANSARD AND THE FIRST WORLD WAR
REMEMBRANCE AND THE FIRST WORLD WAR
Remembrance Day events culminate at 11 a.m. on November 11 to mark the armistice ending the First World War. What was originally known as "Armistice Day" officially became Remembrance Day in 1931 through an act of Parliament.
Poppies have been worn since the 1920s to commemorate Canada's war dead. Here's more on the history of the poppy and how it became a symbol of remembrance:
The First World War remains by far Canada's bloodiest military mission. More than 60,000 Canadians were killed, compared to 42,000-plus during the Second World War.
The casualty rate tells the story. About one in 10 who served from 1914 to 1918 died, compared to approximately one in 26 between 1939 and 1945.
The number rises if you consider only those Canadians who actually deployed to the Western Front, including those who fell at the Somme, Vimy Ridge, and Passchendaele.
Here's what war historian Tim Cook told us in 2018 about the war's final, bloody phase and the price paid by Canadians:
REMEMBERING VIMY RIDGE
The four-day assault against German positions on the ridge began on Easter Sunday, 1917. Four days later, the first action involving all four Canadian Corps divisions fighting side-by-side ended in victory.
But as with many First World War battles fought among the trenches and with powerful new offensive technology, the human cost of Vimy Ridge was high: more than 10,600 casualties, including 3,600 dead.
Watch: CPAC visited Vimy Ridge in the late 1990s with Parks Canada historian Yvon Desloges
Dignitaries marked the 100th anniversary of Vimy Ridge in 2017, including Governor General David Johnston, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, the Prince of Wales, the Duke Of Cambridge, Prince Harry, and French President François Hollande:
Earlier today: Prince of Wales, Duke of Cambridge, Prince Harry, @GGDavidJohnston, @CanadianPM & French PM Hollande tour Vimy Ridge #Vimy100 pic.twitter.com/MzGfE1hjwh
— CPAC (@CPAC_TV) April 9, 2017
REMEMBERING PASSCHENDAELE
Wednesday, meanwhile, marks the 104st anniversary of the end of the Battle of Passchendaele on Nov. 10, 1917.
Watch this Telling Times look at the battle in western Belgium that left 15,654 Canadian casualties -- including more than 4,000 dead -- after several weeks of fighting through horrific conditions.
Passchendaele became infamous not only for the scale of casualties, but also for the mud. Perhaps the battle's most enduring epitaph is the phrase from one of Siegfried Sassoon's poems:
I died in hell -- (They called it Passchendaele.)
Meanwhile, Canada was in the midst of a bitter, divisive election campaign in the autumn of 1917. At issue was conscription -- whether young men would be forced into uniform. And it pitted two giants of Canadian politics, Sir Robert Borden and Sir Wilfrid Laurier, on opposite sides.
Watch The Campaigns: Blood and the Ballot: Democracy on Hold
MAPPING THE FIRST WORLD WAR
Browse the major locations of Canadian casualties in Belgium and France during the First World War:
And year by year, how Canada helped push back imperial Germany from 1915 to 1918:
SOURCE: Official History of the Canadian Army in the First World War: Candian Expeditionary Force, 1914-1919
(ANNOTATED) HANSARD AND THE FIRST WORLD WAR
Not long after TV cameras are installed in the chamber, MPs commemorated Remembrance Day and the 59th anniversary of the armistice to end the First World War. Watch the House of Commons sitting from Nov. 10, 1977
Six decades earlier there were no cameras -- or microphones -- but you can read excerpts from Parliament combined with with CPAC's own footnotes:
August 1914: The outbreak of war
The House of Commons returns early from the summer break amidst news that the British Empire -- Canada included -- is at war in Europe.
The upper chamber is also recalled for a brief summer session upon the outbreak of war.
Borden calls for conscription (May 18, 1917)
Prime Minister Sir Robert Borden describes his visit to England and the Western Front, and promotes conscription as a necessary element of winning the war.
Military Service Act (Aug. 29, 1917)
The controversial 1917 bill to establish conscription in Canada during the First World War.
Military Voters Act (Sept. 20, 1917)
The legislation to give the vote to all Canadian soldiers during the First World War, regardless of their residence status.
Wartime Elections Act (Sept. 20, 1917)
The bill removed voting rights from those born in enemy countries and naturalized after March 1902 -- except those with a son, grandson, or brother on active duty.
Borden's Union government is re-elected against opposition from "Laurier Liberals" and charts their course as the new Parliament is summoned.
WATCH MORE
The 2021 Remembrance Day ceremony at the National War Memorial, limited by COVID-19 public health restrictions:
Newfoundland National War Memorial
Eight hundred members of the Royal Newfoundland Regiment fought in the Battle of the Somme at Beaumont-Hamel, France on July 1, 1916. Only 68 answered the roll call the next morning. Puneet Birgi brings us the story of the regiment and the war memorial built in their honour:
The No. 2 Construction Battalion
The federal government has pledged an official apology next July for the racism and discrimination endured by members of the No. 2 Construction Battalion, which deployed during the First World War as Canada's only Black military unit since Confederation. Here's more from 2016, the 100th anniversary of the battalion's creation:
Built in the aftermath of the 1916 fire that virtually destroyed Centre Block, the Peace Tower rises nearly 100 metres as one of Canada’s most recognized symbols. The tower's base includes the marble and stained-glass Memorial Chamber, with a floor composed of stone taken from European battlefields. Also in the chamber: several altars that contain the Books of Remembrance with the names of nearly 120,000 who died in uniform. Watch our exclusive 2018 documentary on the Peace Tower, part of the Inside Centre Block series.
Homecoming: The Casualties of War
Hosted by Esprit de Corps magazine’s Scott Taylor, an in-depth 2013 examination of the emotional and psychological suffering of Canada’s soldiers returning from the war in Afghanistan and families of the fallen. An exclusive look into war’s secondary and often overlooked battlefield – the home front -- the hour-long documentary explores post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), survivor’s guilt, anxiety and other illnesses that continue to plague soldiers after the military battle ends.
-Andrew Thomson/CPAC
