Dear @hockeynight - on Friday, I took part in a ceremony at an Edmonton mosque, honouring Aboriginal Veterans. Many of the people there were immigrants from Pakistan & India. They recited In Flanders Fields. They all wore poppies.
One of the members of the mosque, an immigrant who just so happens to be an acclaimed botanist, gave an interesting talk about precisely why poppies grew so abundantly on the battlefields of Flanders, and how they became our symbol of remembrance.
Monday, I’ll lay a wreath at Edmonton’s Norwood Legion. I spent last Nov 11 at the same Legion Hall - where the young cadets who assisted with wreaths were themselves as multicultural as Canada itself. Many were undoubtedly the children of immigrants or immigrants themselves.
Many - indeed most - of the young Albertans who fought (and who died) in the First World War were immigrants or the children of immigrants. Others were Indigenous. All deserve to be honoured this week.
We don’t honour the sacrifice of those who died in battle by sowing division or distrust. We do it by remembering the Canadian values that unite us.
Thanks from Edmonton.
Proud Canadians. Proud Albertans. And all of us either immigrants or the children of immigrants. 
