Hundreds expected to pay their respects at this weekend’s Remembrance Day ceremony

Remembrance Day is coming up this weekend, and the day’s itinerary will be much the same as in previous years.

“We have three main aspects to our service,” Sheldon Clare, Branch Chairman of the local Royal Canadian Legion told My PG Now.

First, a service at the Civic Centre at 8:30.

“The service will commence with the marching on of the colours at 9:00, and the indoor ceremony will start no later than 9:15,” he said.

The service will then march to the cenotaph outside of City Hall from 10:15 to 10:45, where there will be a wreath-laying service and two minutes of silence.

There will be warm food and drinks for kids back at the Civic Centre after the event, and further festivities at the Royal Canadian Legion later on in the day.

Clare couldn’t guess how many volunteers and sets of hands are needed to put on Remembrance Day every year, but said planning starts in the spring and the number is high.

“There are such a huge number of people involved,” he said, listing traffic control, RCMP, the Rocky Mountain Rangers, local media, general volunteers, MCs, committee members, and more. “Everybody is just great.”

Clare said attendance is very weather-dependent, but he hopes to see over a thousand take part in the ceremony during the day.

“[This] is really important. If we like our freedoms, we need to really appreciate those who were prepared to go and fight for them,” he said. “I think it is so important for everyone to think about those who served, those who are serving, and even to consider those who will be serving in the future.”