It is a real blessing to be able to attend Remembrance Day in person at the cenotaph here in Listowel.
With my son standing at my feet singing O Canada, I looked around and took stock of how blessed I was to be standing there. In front of me, there was a hospital full of amazing people who care for those in our community regardless of income or background. Behind me, there was the church where I am free to worship without fear. The fact that my son knew every word of his national anthem at the age of six is a testament to just how lucky we are to have local schools with teachers and support staff that are masters of their craft.
During the moment of silence I was overwhelmed with a sense of thankfulness because it was the work and sacrifice of those before me that I could stand there with my son and feel those feelings.
On Friday, former politician and London, Ont. resident Glen Pearson published ‘Reforms built by war veterans in peacetime now under assault,’ outlining the work that veterans of the Second World War did after the war. It rightly acknowledged that those blessings I can enjoy today are not just because of the sacrifice on a far away battlefield. They are also because those very soldiers who gave so much returned to Canada with a galvanized sense of purpose that the world needed to be more equal.
Mr. Pearson points out that at the end of the war, Canada was a nation of 14 million people scattered across a vast land. A mere 25 years later, that shared purpose of building a better society had resulted in universal health care, a modernized public education system, and public infrastructure like the St. Lawrence Seaway and the Trans Canada Highway – the very foundational things that allow us to thrive today.
The people who made up that generation spent their formative years during the Great Depression, having grandparents who served as living links to the back half of the 19th century. A time when industrial progress trumped all else as life for the masses started to transition from the poverty of subsistence farming to what has become the modern idea of a working class. A time when the needs of a single human were ignored to ensure that progress for all didn’t get held up. A childhood most likely marked by poverty, raised by people who had lived out the compromise of the working class, a higher quality of life for society coming with the cost of dangers that existed in modern industrial conditions.
That childhood ended abruptly with the war and by the end of 1945, as the horrors of the Holocaust were becoming clearer, a clear purpose emerged – to build fair and good societies. Consider this quote from Mr. Pearson’s conclusion: “A previous generation, horrified by its witnessing of humanity’s capacity for inhumanity, committed themselves and their resources to overcoming such things in their ongoing fight for something better.” Ask yourself – in today’s context, how can we take up the torch to join the ongoing fight for a more equitable world?
There is always an opportunity to work to create something better. As regular people we have to ask ourselves what we want to fight for today in order to keep building something better for the future. We should not just stand together for a couple hours every year in November and chant the phrase ‘We Will Remember Them’ without imploring our own selves to actually take up the torch.
We are in a period of time when there are those who do not value the sanctity nor the purpose of cherished public institutions like our hospitals and our schools. People ignorant enough to think that there is no danger in regarding Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms as a nuisance that can be overridden for short-term political gain. People who are blind to the fact that their actions today are eroding the very cornerstones of society that were laid by the generation that sacrificed themselves for a larger purpose.
The halls of leadership may be filled right now by people like Premier Doug Ford who would rather gut health care than pay a nurse a fair wage. People like Matt Rae who think it is acceptable that an education worker needs to work a second job so they can pay the rent. People who do not value those cherished public institutions, perhaps because a privileged upbringing allows them to be blind to the realities of the working class.
Let us remember that individual politicians are not forever and regardless of the competence (or lack thereof) of the folks in charge, we as a general society have a duty to protect what we cherish. It was only 25 years ago that our community banded together to ensure that Listowel’s hospital didn’t fall victim to cuts the last time Ontario had a government that didn’t value public health care. Regular people have done it before and we will do it again.
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Stewart Skinner is a local business owner, former political candidate, and has worked at Queen’s Park as a Policy Advisor to the Minister of Agriculture, Food, and Rural Affairs. He can be reached at stewart@stonaleenfarms.ca or on Twitter: @modernfarmer.
