Deachman: Where have all the Remembrance poppies gone?

11 hours ago

Ottawa Citizen

Some Ottawa stores don't take poppy boxes anymore. And it is even getting more difficult to get poppies into the schools.

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Published Nov 04, 2024 • Last updated 2 hours ago • 6 minute read

Veteran Victor Dowie is on poppy duty at Loblaws in South Keys, Nov. 1, 2024. Photo by Jean Levac /POSTMEDIA

I was in the lab at the Riverside campus of The Ottawa Hospital last week, waiting for my number to be called, when a woman wearing a fancy-looking poppy sat in the chair next to me.

It was a pretty lucky coincidence, I thought, because although I was, in fact, there for a blood test, my ulterior motive was to search for poppies.

Her name was Julie Melnyk (no relation to former Sens owner Eugene), and she’d made the poppy herself. And when she was through at the Riverside, she said, she was going home to make more. She volunteers at the University of Ottawa Heart Institute, where she gives away her poppies to other volunteers and staff, as well as patients and visitors — essentially anyone who wants one (always, she added, urging people to donate to the poppy campaign).

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Her efforts to spread the word are by and large appreciated, she said, except occasionally by younger people. “Many of them just look at it and ask, ‘What is this?’ ”

Lest we forget. It’s been more than 125 years since Rudyard Kipling coined the phrase in his poem Recessional, which he wrote for Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee in 1897.

Has it lost its meaning over the years? Are we forgetting? Or should the expression be amended to read “Lest we forget, if ever we even knew”?

Some numbers support the notion that many people simply don’t know of the sacrifices Canadians made in war, or that the poppy has stood as the nation’s symbol of remembrance since 1921, inspired by John McCrae’s poem In Flanders Fields. According to Statistics Canada’s most recent figures, more than 8.3 million residents, or 23 per cent of the population, are immigrants. Many of these new Canadians only recently escaped conflicts in their home countries. It’s difficult to fault them for not knowing about Vimy Ridge or Normandy.

I wondered how much lack of knowledge might be at play when, on my way to the hospital, I decided to first walk through Billings Bridge shopping mall and count the number of poppy-wearers among the first 100 shoppers I passed.

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That number was two, which was fewer than the number of languages I heard spoken.

It should be noted that my “survey” was done on Oct. 30, and while that was the sixth day of this year’s 18-day poppy campaign, which officially runs from the last Friday in October until Remembrance Day, many people don’t start thinking about poppies until Nov. 1.

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Then there’s the difficulty finding poppies, As I was leaving the mall, I noticed a man — one of the two poppy-wearers I’d encountered — being approached by another who asked him where he’d found his poppy, as he was having difficulty sourcing one.

I spoke with the poppied man, who declined the opportunity to see his name in print. But he’d faced a similar difficulty, he said, eventually locating a poppy tray at the Rexall pharmacy. There were only five poppies in the tray, he said, and four were defective. On top of that, there was the issue of leaving a donation. The poppies are technically free, but the Royal Canadian Legion, which runs the poppy campaign, encourages donations, which it uses for philanthropic purposes. The man only had a $50 bill, so he went elsewhere in the mall to buy something, afterwards returning with change for the poppy box. But how many people never carry cash? It certainly makes donating more difficult.

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Meanwhile, there’s the matter of finding a box. My very informal survey at Billings Bridge included an even less scientific search for poppy boxes. I’d noticed the one at the Rexall — at the checkout counter that wasn’t open when I passed, another at one of the teller counters at the TD bank, and two at the LCBO. In fairness, there may have been others that I didn’t notice, but I was looking for them. And also in fairness, this was only one mall.

There are, however, other ways to display a poppy and support veterans. The Legion National Foundation operates a digital poppy campaign, wherein people can create a personalized digital poppy and share it on social media.

According to Dennis Sirman, a veteran and longtime Legion member and volunteer, and former president of the Montgomery Legion, there are numerous challenges in getting the boxes into public view. One is simply a dearth of active Legion members signing up to go to stores, schools and businesses and ask them to display a poppy box, a task for which individual Legions are responsible. That also means there are fewer volunteers at stores and malls to explain the poppy campaign to passersby in person.

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And yes, another factor, he says, is the explosion of new Canadians who don’t know about the country’s history or the memorial significance of poppies. They’re often the people on the front lines or the supervisors at establishments that would typically welcome the boxes. Others among those workers are simply young and unaware.

The Tim Hortons at the Riverside is one such example, he said, where staff said they’d have to contact head office before accepting a poppy donation box. At another Tim’s, the manager agreed to take a box, but said he wouldn’t put it out until head office sent him a letter giving him the green light. In a campaign that only lasts 18 days, even brief delays can be costly.

(Tim Hortons, by the way, is a national sponsor of the poppy campaign, and many others among its franchises, including at the General campus of The Ottawa Hospital, offer poppies. But there were none at the Riverside last Wednesday, or at the information counter at the front entrance, or the lab, both areas that Sirman says routinely took them prior to COVID.)

Sirman said another store, which he did not name, asked if it would receive a share of any money collected.

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“Even some pharmacies don’t participate. And last year when we went to the bank to make a deposit, they had no idea what we were talking about or why we were bringing in that much coinage.”

It’s even becoming increasingly difficult to get schools to take the boxes, says Sirman. “Many do, and quite willingly. But each year, fewer and fewer schools take poppies from us, and find our campaign a nuisance. I’ve been shocked at how things are going, and the difficulty in keeping the remembrance alive.”

A poppy was left on a tombstone of a soldiers in the National Military Cemetery after the Remembrance Day ceremonies at the National Military Cemetery at the Beechwood Cemetery in Ottawa, November 11, 2021. Photo by Jean Levac /POSTMEDIA

Schools aren’t the only venue where youths can learn about Remembrance Day and its significance. Beechwood Cemetery, for example, has since 2018 annually taken part in No Stone Left Alone, a national campaign of remembrance to honour Canadian veterans. In the days leading up to Nov. 11, youths at Beechwood place poppies on the headstones of more than 7,000 veterans buried there. This year’s ceremonies, which will take place on Nov. 5 and the 9, will see more than 100 Grade 5 and 6 students, and about 200 Girl Guides, from the region take part.

“You can’t shame people into remembrance,” says Nick McCarthy, Beechwood’s director of marketing, communications and community outreach. “You have to figure out how it’s meaningful to them. It has to be an act of reflection, and not performative.”

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McCarthy stresses that teaching youths about Canada’s military history shouldn’t be about the numbers and dates, but about how it affects Canadians. “We have to understand the sacrifice, and there are people out there who are still sacrificing, every day, on behalf of our country. And it’s also about the families who are spending months and months without their loved ones. You wear the poppy because you want them to know that you’re there for them.”

But back to the hospital waiting room. Overhearing my conversation with Melnyk, another woman leaned forward in her seat and confessed she wasn’t wearing a poppy because she had given hers to her son that morning. She then moved closer to share pictures and a video on her phone of her husband painting a portrait of a veteran.

Hopefully, there are more people out there like her and Melnyk, keeping alive the significance of Remembrance Day and the poppy campaign.

Meanwhile, wear a poppy, and if someone asks you what it is, take the time to explain.

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