I think the spirit is alive and well, and that after 12 years of vicious combat in Afghanistan and 158 trips down the Highway of Heroes, that spirit is very strong.
I say “honour the living”, as you know, and I mentioned that when we take our poppies off we've fulfilled our obligation to the dead. But there are still people out here who are lacking limbs, minds, and souls, and who deserve respect. I believe in my heart that the nation will rally, that we can provide.... For example, in hockey we have six NHL teams here. We can make Remembrance Day stretch. From two o'clock in the afternoon.... Be respectful and let the veterans go with their friends and have lunch, but at two o'clock it starts, and every veteran in that community, whether it's NHL, whether it's AHL, whether it's your local B team, it doesn't matter, because we're bringing those veterans forward in Iraq with your kids and my kids.
This is where the spirit lives. We have basketball.... We could offer movies for free for veterans and stuff, but most important—and I believe this—we mentioned parents. Where are the parents of Canada's children today? Why do they not have the right to do like I wanted to do, which is to take their child out of school and enrich him or her and expose him or her to the experience of standing at that cenotaph and watching grown men cry in remembering their friends and feeling the spirt of the nation rise?
I think we're missing the boat. We're complaining that there won't be any people showing up. That's not the point. The point is respect: respect and to pay that respect. As a community, we can rally to extraordinary levels. There's so much opportunity. If Veterans Affairs Canada took the lead on this and, instead of putting on rinky-dink commercials about going to work, put on commercials about sacrifice, about encouraging professional sports teams to embrace this concept every Remembrance Day, bringing out the nation as a whole, unified, proud, and free, I would suggest to you that the spirit in the nation would be alive and well for this generation, the next generation, and every generation forward from that time.