Remembrance Day in Canada reaches its centrepiece on Wednesday morning, when the National Remembrance Day Ceremony takes place at the National War Memorial in Ottawa. The ceremony begins at about 10.30am Eastern Time, with the two minutes of silence at 11am, and is organised by the Royal Canadian Legion on behalf of the people of Canada.
Governor General Louise Arbour, who is also Commander-in-Chief of Canada, will attend the ceremony, according to an official media advisory. She will be joined by this year’s National Silver Cross Mother, Virginia Hicks of Trenton, Ontario, who will place a wreath on behalf of all Canadian mothers who have lost a child in military service to Canada.
Flypasts and a 21-gun salute
The ceremony follows a familiar order: a veterans’ march, the arrival of dignitaries, the Last Post, the Act of Remembrance, two minutes of silence, a 21-gun salute and wreath laying, followed by a march-past. The 21-gun salute is fired at about 11am from the east side of Parliament Hill, near the Rideau Canal. Two flypasts are scheduled over the memorial: four CF-18 Hornets at about 11.05am, and a Black Hawk helicopter at about 11.30am, which may fly as low as 300 feet above the ground.
Streets around the memorial are closed from 7am to 2pm, and several bus routes are detoured, the City of Ottawa said. Flags at city facilities fly at half-mast from sunrise to sunset. The ceremony is broadcast live on national television and livestreamed on the Royal Canadian Legion’s Facebook page.
A centenary year for the Legion
Remembrance Day is a federal statutory holiday in Canada, so federal offices, Canada Post, the Canada Revenue Agency and Service Canada are closed, and most banks shut their branches for the day. It is not a provincial holiday in Ontario, Quebec, Manitoba or Nova Scotia, so many workplaces in those provinces stay open.
Veterans Affairs Canada marks Veterans’ Week from November 5 to 11, and the Royal Canadian Legion’s Poppy Campaign runs from October 24 to November 11. This year also marks the Legion’s centenary. One of the day’s quieter traditions takes place at the Canadian War Museum, where a single window in Memorial Hall is aligned so that at exactly 11am on November 11, sunlight falls on the headstone of Canada’s Unknown Soldier.
Related reading: Veterans Day Wednesday: Free Parks and the Arlington Wreath Change.
