OTTAWA — Canadians paused to remember the military members who put their lives on the line to serve their country as Remembrance Day ceremonies got underway Tuesday morning from coast to coast.
Family members of the war dead staked out spots hours in advance in the nation’s snowy capital, braving chilly weather to get a good view of the ceremony at the National War Memorial.
Brian Revet, who said he lost an uncle in the Second World War who served as an aircraft gunner, travelled to Ottawa from Saskatoon for the event.
He arrived at 8 a.m. so that he could witness up close a ceremony he has watched on television since he was a teenager.
“It’s always meant a lot, ever since I was 16 years old. I’ve never served, I couldn’t imagine what it would be like,” he said.
This year marks eight decades since the end of the deadliest military conflict in history.
Second World War veteran John Preece, 99, told The Canadian Press he still remembers trudging through the muck in poor weather during the war.
“It was muddy and cold and raining and snowing,” he said. “It wasn’t very nice.”
Preece, who served as a private, was wounded when a sniper bullet struck his arm as he was operating a Bren light machine gun in Holland in April 1945.
He is one of just a few thousand Canadian veterans from that pivotal war still alive.
“I don’t know any veterans (from the war). Never seen any. When I go to the old regiment in Toronto to visit, there’s nobody. Everybody’s gone,” he said. “How many people do you know who are 100 or more?”
Veterans Affairs Canada said it estimates that as of this year, there are 3,691 surviving Canadian veterans of the Second World War — 667 women and 3,024 men.
“The events of the Second World War are very rapidly moving from the realm of lived history of people you can talk to … into history where you can’t talk to the people who remember them,” said Jeff Noakes, Second World War historian at the Canadian War Museum.
The stories of that war — from the bloody horrors of combat to the aftermath of post-war economic uncertainty — are passing from the realm of living to recorded history as the number of veterans who remember those days dwindles.
“Even if you were five years old when the war ended, you’d be 85 now.” said Noakes. “So it’s this big shift from knowing a neighbour or a family member or somebody you could talk to about this into … moving out of the experience of lived history.”
Prime Minister Mark Carney and his wife Diana arrived at the National War Memorial at about 10:45 a.m.
He said in a media statement that the day honours those who “sacrificed years away from loved ones,” those who returned from combat forever changed, and those who never came back at all.
“We pause to remember those acts of heroic service. We remember that our rights, our freedoms, our way of life were fought for and were won by Canadians who answer the call,” Carney said.
In his own media statement, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre thanked military members for their “service on sea, land and air,” adding “we honour the memories of all those who fell in our nation’s wars.”
“May we all, in our own small ways, carry on their selfless spirit.”
In a rare turn of events, Gov. Gen. Mary Simon was absent from the ceremony as she recovered from a respiratory virus in hospital. Supreme Court Chief Justice Richard Wagner stepped in to preside over the ceremony in Ottawa in her place.
At the service in Halifax, N.S., Boston’s newly reelected Mayor Michelle Wu was among the attendees.
Mayor Wu accompanied Halifax Mayor Andy Fillmore, and said she was happy to attend the ceremony as a show of the continuing relationship between Halifax and Boston. Wu laid a wreath at the local cenotaph on behalf of the City of Boston.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 11, 2025.
— With files from Nick Murray in Ottawa and Emily Cadloff in Halifax
Kyle Duggan, The Canadian Press
