This article originally appeared in the Toronto Sun.
By Anthony De Luca-Baratta, November 11, 2025
Over a century after the guns of the First World War fell silent, Canadians continue to remember the 118,000 servicemembers who have died fighting the nation’s wars since Confederation. As we pay our respects, we should also remember what makes Canada worth fighting for in the first place.
On November 11, 1918 at the 11th hour, the Allies signed an armistice with Germany, effectively bringing the Great War to a close. One year later, King George V declared November 11 to be a day of remembrance — originally called Armistice Day — across the British Empire, including in the Dominion of Canada. In 1921, inspired by Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae’s poem “In Flanders Fields”, the Great War Veterans Association of Canada — a predecessor to the Royal Canadian Legion — adopted the poppy as the official symbol of remembrance.
Back then, the vast majority of Canadians shared a firm sense of British or French-Canadian identity. Every Canadian would have known someone who had fought in the First World War.
Today, for most of us, military service is as distant in thought as the British Empire is in time. Yet every year on November 11, we continue to remember not only those Canadians who died in the trenches of the First World War, but those who died on the beaches of Normandy, in the skies of Britain, and in the fields of Holland fighting the Nazis. We remember those Canadians who fought tyranny in the jungles of the Korean peninsula, and in the deserts of Afghanistan, Syria, and Iraq.
Servicemembers act for country, not glory
We remember the servicemembers who continue to serve today, not for glory, but for a country worthy of their sacrifice. Indeed, if Canadians today assume “peace, order and good government” as their God-given right, it is only because our ancestors forged it over centuries by the sweat of their brows and occasionally the force of their arms.
In 1642, when King Charles I entered the House of Commons in London to arrest five lawmakers who opposed his attempts to rule without consulting Parliament, Canada was a struggling French colony. It was scarcely conceivable that the reformed English constitution that would follow — which limited the power of the King, established parliamentary authority, and ensured greater individual liberty — would one day migrate to Canadian shores.
But migrate it did, after France ceded its North American territories to Britain in 1763 and uprisings against unaccountable colonial rule rocked Upper and Lower Canada in the late 1830s. The resulting Durham Report recommended instituting “responsible government” — a system in which the representatives of the Crown could only govern with the consent of elected officials. Confederation established responsible government in the form of the Canadian Parliament in 1867.
Too many take rights for granted
This form of government embodies the Canadian national character, deeply rooted in English liberty. It provides the scaffolding for the rights, freedoms and prosperity that too many take for granted. Canadians should reflect on the sheer privilege of being the inheritors of this great tradition. We should also be ever vigilant against the erosion of that inheritance, whether through the wanton desecration of national symbols or the overt stripping away of hard-won rights.
For many of us, the sacrifices of the Great War are personal, born by great grandfathers who never returned home. For others, they helped forge the nation whose generosity in welcoming us, our parents, or our grandparents to its shores makes us proud to be Canadian. Regardless, we have all inherited the homeland — with all its attendant advantages — for which those men fought and died.
On Nov. 11 then, let us honour the fallen, and the country they fought for. Lest we forget.
Anthony De Luca-Baratta is a proud member of the Royal Canadian Legion, a contributor to the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, and a Young Voices Senior Contributor based in Montreal.
