Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thanks for the invitation to the Royal Canadian Legion to appear before you today.
I am Steven Clark, national executive director. I am a veteran and I also served for 10 years as the director of Canada's national Remembrance Day ceremony held at the National War Memorial. The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, positioned in front of the memorial, was a millennium project initiated by the Legion, adding to the special significance that this sacred site has to our organization.
The Legion is a large, national organization united around a mission that has remained unchanged for our almost 100 years of existence. It is to support veterans, serve our communities and country, and promote remembrance. The Legion has undertaken numerous remembrance initiatives to bring focus to service and sacrifice, such as the poppy campaign, where upwards of 20 million poppies are distributed annually throughout the country as a visual pledge to never forget. The yearly poster and literary contest has the participation of 100,000 students each year who show what remembrance means to them through their artistic works and literary compositions. The virtual poppy drop is a projection on Centre Block and the Senate of Canada buildings.
Legion commands and branches also organize and conduct remembrance ceremonies at memorials and cenotaphs in communities nationwide. Despite these large-scale and other widespread remembrance efforts, there are those who just do not, or choose not, to understand service and sacrifice.
Memorials and monuments are community gathering places for commemorations. They are a physical presence standing as important symbols of our commitment to honour and remember. They establish a historical link from the present to our military heritage. They are to be revered, but sadly, they are not free from desecration. For example, in 2006, three males were caught urinating on the National War Memorial. At that time there were calls for more security at the site. In 2009, the provincial cenotaph in Fredericton was vandalized. In 2012, the Inukshuk memorial for Afghan veterans, erected at Legion headquarters in Ottawa, was toppled. The individual responsible for desecrating this memorial—which was donated by Richard and Claire Léger, the National Silver Cross Mother for 2005—never owned up to their actions. Just last year in 2021, the memorial wall in Cranbrook, British Columbia, was vandalized.
These are just four examples of disrespect. How society responds to such reprehensible acts is paramount. Some countries have introduced or enacted bills to address the desecration of war memorials, but it is so unfortunate that governments have had to legislate penalties as a deterrent to such inexcusable actions, rather than individuals showing an understanding of respect and the application of common sense and personal decency.
If not corrected, ruinous behaviour has a penchant for repetition. As a society, a government, an organization and individuals, we all have a responsibility to protect the sanctity of memorials and to preserve the memory of the fallen. Memorials are symbols of a grateful nation's collective reminiscence, where we pause to honour, thank and remember them.
With reference to the National War Memorial of late, appropriating the sacred site for use as a backdrop for displays of disobedience, inappropriate messaging or attempts to legitimize or push an alternate agenda beyond one with a purely remembrance focus, or to stand by and idly watch as these things take place, especially by those in a position of civil authority, is simply wrong. We need to do better. Our fallen deserve better.
Mr. Chair, the Legion thanks you and the committee for the opportunity to make this presentation as part of this important study.