Remember The World We Want

Remembering is a duty, but how we remember is a choice.

This duty and these choices mean that as Canadians we face the world with open eyes, whether as individuals, or as a nation.

This Remembrance Day I choose to honour the sacrifice of our men and women in uniform, past and present, and their families, by imagining the world they’ve fought to make possible.

It is a world without child soldiers; where cluster munitions and landmines no longer litter countrysides. It is a world where the threat of nuclear proliferation and future genocides have ceased to exist.

These ideas may seem bold. Even unbelievable. But consider this.

Until 1957, the soldier was known only as an instrument of war. That year, a Canadian, Lester B. Pearson, imagined a soldier could be an instrument of peacekeeping, too.

One bold idea, one cause, and one nation had the power to change how peace is kept.

This Remembrance Day, we can choose to honour our men and women in uniform, and their families, by recognizing their sacrifice. But we can also do more than that.

We can imagine that the world our soldiers fight and die to protect is possible.

And we can build it to honour their sacrifice. Because that, too, is a choice.


Sincerely,

LGen the Honourable Roméo Dallaire, (ret’d), Senator (Quebec)




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