The consultative process was undertaken for several months before the bill came before the House. It included letter-writing campaigns to every single legion across the country, because unfortunately—and this was always perplexing—we could never get Dominion Command to return our calls. That was very unfortunate, because you want to be engaging in these conversations.
Through the last couple of years, every time I'd encounter a member of the Canadian Armed Forces, I'd ask them for their opinions on this bill and whether they thought that making Remembrance Day a statutory holiday made sense. I found that the vast majority of them were in agreement.
There are a lot of folks who think it will lose meaning if we make it into a statutory holiday. I know that in Ontario part of the concern was that if kids aren't in school they're not going to learn about it and we're actually going to take a step back. But for this, like anything else we honour or celebrate, it's incumbent upon us to give it meaning. I think that's where the importance is here. As long as we continue to provide great importance to and a focus on Remembrance Day, it will gain in importance and meaning.
The consultative process, though, was not perhaps as fulsome as I would have liked. Certainly, I don't think we're ever able to spend enough time consulting on the different things we want to do or meeting with as many different groups and individuals as possible. I had conversations with the Retail Council of Canada, as well as the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, and heard from those groups about what they thought. As well, in going to some of their member businesses to see what they thought, although there are certainly a number of businesses that don't want to see another statutory day off, I was pleasantly surprised by the number that did.
Depending on where you are in retail, for instance, this bill might not have much of an impact. One CEO I spoke to told me that people have only so much money to spend, and if they can't spend it today, they'll spend it tomorrow. For his business, he wasn't going to see a negative to bringing this bill forward. With another CEO, it was a question of his grandfather having served in the First World War, and he would have appreciated having the day to pay his respects and to participate in ceremonies and services.
There's a lot of opinion out there all across the way, but I think everybody is on the right track with respect to wanting to find the best way to commemorate the eleventh.