================= forwarded from CFD V2 #696 ============ Date: Fri, 13 Nov 1998 06:03:49 -0600 From: Dan MacInnis <dan.louise@sympatico.ca> Subject: Rememberance Day 1998. It is past eleven O'clock here. It is November 11th, 1998. On this date every year my mind always returns to thoughts of my uncle, whose body, it's elements long ago returned to the earth, the dust undisturbed in a European grave, the man for whom I was renamed when the sad news reached my mother and grandfather on that early spring morning many years ago. Even as child their wet faces impacted me, forever. It drifted today to Ottawa, where I once stood cold but proud close to one Paul Hellyer, then Minister of National Defense under the Honorable Prime Minister Lester Bowles Pearson. It was Rememberance Day, Paul was delivering the obligatory service beside a Cenotaph, the soldiers, sailors and airmen stood at ease waiting for the ceremonies to end, pretending to listen to his resonant, educated voice. It was a bitter cold day, I knew they would prefer to be at their homes, or in their messes or just anyplace but on parade that day. I was proud to be associated with a government, indeed a country even, with such diversity, such room for individuals to work, play and overcome the challenges each would experience. It honestly was a Free Canada, individuals could aspire to whatever their imaginations deemed them worthy to become. Later that evening, at a Military function, a member of the RCAF suggested to me, each of us with the government issued glass in the right hand, white serviette properly wrapped around it to keep the hand warm and dry for handshaking, that someday he expected I would be Minister of National Defense. Sadly enough, we both believed it. But today is November 11th, 1998, at about 11:50 AM. My pride in the Liberal Party of Canada has been shattered. My belief that issues like Conscription, which polarized our founding peoples for two generations, would never surface, ever again, gone. My belief that MY PARTY stood for individual rights, the only force that would stand between the Elite's and the common person, gone. Forever. So it a doubly sad day for me. My uncle, and my Party. Bill C68 has intruded into the lives of so many Canadians, and if left to stand as is, will undermine everything I stood there that cold Ottawa morning to pay tribute, and everything my uncle died for in that foreign field so long ago. He died with no idea the rifle he carried to fight for our freedoms would become such a divisive symbol a few short years later. On this morning I shall not revisit the implications of C68. Rather, I will ask those struggling to preserve out heritage to continue the fight. Do not surrender. Then, when it becomes our time to let our earthly possessions go, when our bodies begin the journey back to the dust from whence they came and our spirits return to source, perhaps the cold white silk of the casket or the sides of the urn holding our ashes will be a bit warmer knowing we did all we could for those who follow. Anything less of us would be shameful.