Mr. Chair, vice-chairs, honourable members, good afternoon.
My name is Sean Smith. I served in the Canadian Forces primary reserve as an armoured crewman, with the British Columbia Dragoons and the South Alberta Light Horse, from 1986 to 2001. Thirteen of my 15 years of service were full-time, including tours of duty with the United Nations in Cyprus and NATO in Germany.
I am the ninth generation of my family to serve Crown and country, dating back to Sergeant Robert Perry, a Loyalist who served with Jessup’s Loyal Rangers during the American Revolution. My family has been involved in almost every Canadian conflict, foreign and domestic, from the War of 1812 to the end of the Cold War. For me and my family, remembrance is not a day or a month in the year, it is every day.
It is with this history in mind that I have the honour of presenting my suggestions on how we, as a nation, can better remember those who have served and sacrificed for Canada, while continuing to recognize the ongoing service of those who proudly wear the uniform of our country today.
Veterans, serving or retired, are living history of our nation in war and peace. Unlike memorials of stone or steel, they have the ability to share the experiences of wars fought and peacetime duties done. Growing up, I listened to my father telling me stories of service in the UN in the Belgian Congo in 1963-64, and I read my great-grandfather’s memoirs of serving with Sam Steele in South Africa during the Boer War. It is these stories that connect me to remembrance. While well-known stories of valour and sacrifice of some of our nation’s heroes are important, they are not stories that directly connect the majority of our youth—the carriers of our memory—to our collective history.
I am sure MP Brassard can attest to the difference between a child simply seeing a firefighter and a child who has a chance to talk to a firefighter or watch them work. I am sure that member of MP Samson can attest to the difference between a child learning something from a book and a child learning something from an experience in person. Making those connections embeds a memory with meaning.
Throughout our country, there are people and organizations that have committed themselves to creating living memories. Al Cameron, of Veterans Voices of Canada, has been recording veterans and their stories for years, so they do not get lost in time. The Memory Project, an initiative of Historica Canada, works to connect veterans to schools and organizations, allowing veterans to tell their stories and experiences first-hand. They are people who are passionate about ensuring these memories never get lost or forgotten. I strongly believe that connecting these organizations to the government resources, archives and support, aiding them in furthering their efforts and supporting their passion, will help ensure that so many of these stories will be shared and recorded and not lost to the ages.
As a person who works with youth, I can tell you with certainty that to engage our youth in remembrance, we need to make a greater effort to connect them to that remembrance. We need to challenge and aid our youth to discover their own connections to the history of war and peace in our country. A youth who looks at a photo of the Vimy Ridge memorial might remember it. A youth who looks at a photo of Vimy Ridge and says that his great-great-grandfather fought at Vimy Ridge, that will most definitely be remembered.
In closing, I would like to stress my belief that the future of remembrance does not lie in the hands of you and me. While vital to remembrance, memorials and markers are only physical touchpoints to the people and places of our past. To create real remembrance, we must work harder to connect our youth and citizens to those who are the living memory of our history, as well as connecting them to their own family’s part in that history.
Thank you.