Every November 11th at 11 a.m., in large cities and small towns across the country, many Canadians gather for two minutes of silence to honour the fallen, to remember the horror of war and the need for peace.
These Canadians celebrate Remembrance Day, originally called Armistice Day. They get together to remember uncles or grandfathers who fought in the First World War. Men who sacrificed for their country.
Whether they gather at the National War Memorial in Ottawa or school gyms, people young and old listen to a bugle play the Last Post. Someone recites In Flanders Fields, and almost everyone wears poppies.
For other Canadians, it’s just another holiday—a day off. A time to rake the leaves.
For a small number of COVID anti-vaxxers, Remembrance Day and the poppies are just something to exploit to score political points.
Credit: Twitter
Unfortunately, former NHL hockey player Theo Fleury is one of those anti-vaxxers. Ironically, the feisty former right winger for the Calgary Flames has joined the extreme political right-wing. His recent tweet that said Canadian WWI soldiers died to defend some crazy anti-vax, anti-mandate ideas are absurd and dangerous.
Fleury is also ignorant of basic Canadian history.
The fact is the Spanish Flu, not gunshots, killed many of the 50,000 Canadian soldiers who died in WWI. We don’t know precisely how many. But we know that the flu killed half of the American WWI soldiers who died in the war that was supposed to end all wars. So Canadian flu fatalities were probably similar.
That’s on top of the 65,000 Canadians who died from the 1918 flu back here in Canada.
I’m sure that those soldiers and their families back home would have jumped at the chance to get a flu vaccine.
But as Fleury’s tweet shows, pro-virus/anti-vax/anti-mandate blowhards will go to almost any length to spread their nonsense propaganda.
How dare they sully the legacy of brave Canadian soldiers with their nonsense.
Have they no shame!
