Seeing that I am the founder of that day, sure, I could speak to it.
If you went into your archives and found these documents, you would know about it. Back in 1992 we were gathered here on the Hill to establish the National Aboriginal Veterans Association—the good one, not the current one. One of the things that came out of that meeting with veterans from all across Canada was that they wanted a day when they could keep their history in their community. As veterans, we'll tell you that the one place we want to be on November 11 is with our comrades. Whether it's in Winnipeg or whether it's here at the cenotaph, we want to be with everybody.
We had this discussion, and June 21 came up. They said, “No, that's National Indigenous Peoples Day. We want our day.”
We went through a bunch of stuff. We looked at November 8 because of the number, 8. What they came up with was that it was a good time to be able to get their uniforms out and get them dry cleaned, to polish up everything that needed to be polished up, to get their feet working in the right direction as far as marching and remembering things was concerned, and to meet with their community—be within their community, save their history there, be with their children and grandchildren, share what was happening. They figured that gave them enough time to get all spruced up and ready to go wherever they had to go on November 11.
That is why that day was put into play. It has now gone all the way across. People don't understand it because nobody asked the question. I mean, the Legion went bonkers on it until I sat down and told them the reason. It's taking nothing away from November 11.