There will be a Remembrance Day ceremony at the cenotaph in Cochrane’s Memorial Park on Wednesday morning, but it doesn’t involve Branch 89 of the Legion.
The Cochrane Ministerial Association is organizing what it’s calling a mini-service that it expects to last about 20 minutes. President Pastor Bob Cox says it won’t be live-streamed… because his group doesn’t want to compete with the Legion’s video presentation that will stream at 11:00am.
“We have talked to a few of the vets and some people would like to be at the cenotaph just for the sake of respect and stuff, and if they’re able to go and so we are going to go ahead with it now,” Cox tells My Cochrane Now Dot Com.
The ceremony begins at 10:50am. Cox hopes physical distancing and face masks are used, and doesn’t expect to exceed the public health limit of 25 people in an outdoor gathering.
Legion Branch 89 president Laura Toal is quick to disavow her organization of any involvement in the alternative ceremony.
“No Legion members are to participate in this,” she says adamantly, “to go down to the cenotaph in any uniform. And no flags will be presented.”
If anyone defies that directive, Toal says National Command of the Legion could reprimand or impose sanctions on the branch.
Pastor Cox says the ceremony will be very basic, with no wreath laying. It will feature the Last Post, “In Flanders Fields”, a prayer and two minutes of silence.
“We didn’t want to do it to offend anyone,” he remarks. “We’re not trying to compete with what they’ve done. We’re just trying to provide an alternative for those who really need to be at the cenotaph, because we feel we need to be there.”