Wallace G. Craig

Contributing Writer

This article was first published in the North Shore News, "the voice of North and West Vancouver", B.C. --: June 29, 2005

IN 1867 the English parliament enacted the British North America Act, uniting several of its North American colonies as the Dominion of Canada.

British Columbia entered the Canadian Confederation in 1871.

From the beginning Canada's birthday was recognized by a statutory holiday - Dominion Day - the first day of July. In 1980 Dominion Day became Canada Day.

Except for the first, 50th, 60th and 100th anniversaries of Confederation, our national day was without organized celebration or patriotic fervor. Since 1967 organized festivities have made July 1 a truly celebratory occasion.

But I doubt that today's Canada Day celebrations give enough emphasis to allegiance and patriotism.

The emergence in 1982 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms together with a growing trend in our society to materialistic self-indulgence - to live and act as we please without reference to the aspirations of Canadians who came before us - all of this, it seems to me, has created an enigma.

Has Canada Day become just another statutory holiday with fireworks affirming our right to individual liberty and self-indulgence? Or is it a day of unashamed renewal of our allegiance to Canada involving an open acknowledgement that citizenship entails acceptance of duties and responsibilities in harmony with the exercise of rights and privileges?

I worry that if we continue to exercise our constitutional rights without individual restraint then Canada Day becomes a mockery of our greatest achievement - democratic freedom in a society that embraces and practices our constitutional purpose of "peace, order and good government."

I believe that the closing words of our national anthem, "O Canada we stand on guard for thee," are not empty ritual.

They are words of allegiance and give meaning and purpose to Canada Day.

Regrettably it has taken me a lifetime to fully understand the measure of O Canada.

I was born in Vancouver in 1931 and raised in the austerity of the Great Depression and the turbulence of the Second World War. As a 10-year-old, I listened to news broadcasts and read about the war. It gave me an ominous feeling to know that young Canadian men, many the age of my oldest brother, were in far-off lands, fighting and dying for Canada.

In the aftermath of the war I took life and citizenship for granted. I became an adult in a time of peace and prosperity. Life was all about today and dreams of endless tomorrows.

I drifted into law at UBC and was called to the bar in 1955. After practicing law for 20 years, a special privilege that I came to value highly, I accepted appointment as a judge in provincial court and worked there for 26 years.

Only in a symbolic and theoretical sense can I claim to have served my country.

On Canada Day we ought to pause in our celebration and remember that standing watch for us are police officers, firefighters, doctors and paramedics, those who sail aboard coast guard vessels, immigration officers, keepers of lighthouses and last but not least - jail guards.

Yet it was the incredible sacrifice of the generation of Canadians who fought alongside our allies and won the war that gave my generation unlimited opportunity and freedom.

They were ordinary men who became the bravest of the brave. They stood on guard for Canada.

They gave a true and ultimate meaning to our anthem.

A few days ago I was given a copy of Holding Juno, historian Mark Zuehlke's bloodcurdling account of a battle that began June 7, 1944, the day after D-Day.

Weary Canadian soldiers came under a counterattack by an SS Panzer division laced with fanatical Hitler Youth. After six never-ending days of fierce close-quarters combat, the Germans were forced to retreat. The cost in casualties was horrendous - more than 1,000 Canadian soldiers killed, 1,700 wounded, many of them left with lifelong disabilities.

I am convinced that the vast majority of Canadians want our politicians to stop pussyfooting around in vote-buying games and patronage, and become statesmen and stateswomen. For example elected representatives should:

n Stand on guard for ordinary law-abiding Canadians by strengthening our police forces to the extent that rampant property crime, violence, drug dealing and hooliganism are curbed and contained;

n Become true citizens by working across party lines to revitalize and preserve our health-care system.

n Rein in the juggernaut of taxation and its concomitant - profligate wastage of our money.

n But most of all, in memory of young Canadians who stood on guard for Canada and defeated fascism, they must curb the unlimited power of our prime minister (power that verges on democratic tyranny) - remove servility as a characteristic of Members of Parliament - and restore the function of debates in the House of Commons.

In his epilogue to Holding Juno, Zuehlke spoke for all Canadians when he stated: "The Canada we live in today exists because of the sacrifice of these young men who marched to a call to fight in foreign lands against fascism. They gave their all. Walking out of the cemetery at Beny-sur-Mer on a gentle spring day in Normandy, it is hard to imagine this landscape when it was torn by the blast of shells, gunfire, and the screams of young men dying. Birdsong seems to be everywhere this fine morning. Looking back, I see the Canadian flag snapping in the breeze among the headstones . . . ."

O Canada, do we love you enough to stand on guard for thee?

craig@canadianjusticereviewboard.ca

posted on 06/29/2005