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Victoria displays offer chance to reflect ahead of Remembrance Day

The City of Victoria is making it easier to remember the men and women who have served Canada on the battlefield.
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The poppy flag was raised at Victoria City Hall on Friday to mark the start of the Royal Canadian Legion's annual poppy campaign. Funds raised through the sale of the lapel pins support current and former Canadian Armed Forces members and their families.

The City of Victoria is making it easier to remember the men and women who have served Canada on the battlefield.

Mayor Lisa Helps, city council members and municipal staff kicked off the Royal Canadian Legion’s annual poppy campaign by raising the poppy flag outside city hall’s Pandora Avenue entrance.

Funds raised during the campaign provide financial assistance to serving and former Canadian Armed Forces families.

Several Royal Canadian Legion volunteers, war veterans and peacekeepers attended the brief noontime ceremony.

“The sacrifices they’ve made over the years are mind-boggling,” said Victoria Coun. Chris Coleman, whose family made attending the flag-raising event an annual tradition.

“While we rush forward in the hurly-burly of our daily lives, we should never forget this tradition and sacrifice that has allowed us to carry on our lives today.”

Attendees included Gordon Quan, who joined the army at age 18 in 1944, became a demolitions expert and served in the British Army’s Southeast Asia Command, battling the Japanese in India and Burma.

The highly decorated soldier said that as the number of living First and Second World War veterans decreases, it’s important to draw attention to initiatives like the World Remembers Project.

“It’s quite important,” said Quan, a member of Royal Canadian Legion’s Brittania branch in Victoria.

“Young people … they don’t understand or don’t have enough education in our system.”

The project recalls the contributions of First World War soldiers from Canada. The names of the 5,472 Canadian soldiers who died in 1915 will be on display at city hall until Nov. 11.

Soldiers from 12 other nations will be included; a total 516,681 who died in 1915 will be remembered. A total of 694 residents of Victoria were killed during the First World War. The last known Canadian who fought during the First World War, John Babcock, died in 2010.

When the Cumberland-born Quan joined the army, Chinese Canadians weren’t allowed to vote. He said many young people don’t understand why they would volunteer when there was such discrimination.

“But we were young and foolish,” said Quan, who turns 90 next year. “We didn’t even understand what was going on.”

Victoria is also taking part in the Toll of War project, with a number of commemorative banners to be installed downtown for Remembrance Day.

The banners will highlight stories of people who received the Victoria Cross, conferred “for most conspicuous bravery or some daring or pre-eminent act of valour or self-sacrifice or extreme devotion to duty in the presence of the enemy.”

The Victoria Cross was created by Queen Victoria in 1856. Ninety-eight Victoria Crosses have been awarded to Canadians. The last was in 1945.

mreid@timescolonist.com