Members, good morning. It is a pleasure to be here on behalf of our chair of the board, Elizabeth Crowe, and our director of education, Ms. Patricia Preston, to speak to you this morning about Bill C-597, an act to amend the Holidays Act, Remembrance Day.
At the York Catholic District School Board's regular meeting of the board, held on Tuesday, November 25, the board of trustees passed a motion that a letter be written to members of municipal, provincial, and federal governments to express their strong belief that November 11, Remembrance Day, should not be made a statutory or school holiday. This year, nearly 100 letters were sent. The motion was a result of comments made to trustees by several veterans who visited and presented at various Remembrance Day services across the York Catholic District School Board. The veterans' comments unanimously expressed their desire to keep our schools open on November 11 in order to appropriately honour this important day.
The York Catholic District School Board supports this desire by our veterans and does not endorse Member of Parliament Dan Harris's private bill to make November 11, Remembrance Day, a statutory holiday. Although the bill may have good intentions, we believe that school Remembrance Day ceremonies and activities are an opportunity to teach young students to appreciate the many sacrifices of those who have fought, died, and served for our great nation.
Remembrance Day ceremonies are held at each of our 104 schools with over 55,000 students participating to honour our Canadian Armed Forces and Canada's fine military history. Students gain a better understanding of the meaning of Remembrance Day and are able to fully participate in activities commemorating the sacrifices that Canadians have made in armed conflicts by wearing poppies, offering prayers of thanks, hope and peace, hearing liturgies, hearing war veterans recount, or hearing active duty personnel speak to students, and observing a moment of silence.
This year alone, we had many members of the Canadian Armed Forces visit our schools to speak to our young students. There is no guarantee that students would respectfully observe Remembrance Day if they were not in school, because it would be a statutory holiday. We respectfully ask that you work with all levels of government to discourage the making of Remembrance Day into a statutory holiday so that we can continue to create meaningful learning opportunities for the future generations of Canadians, our students.
Thank you, and I welcome any questions.