The importance of Remembering.

Wow!  It's be a long time since I posted here.  But for some reason the events of the last week have needed more of an outlet than Facebook or Twitter will allow for.

We are a nation in mourning, we are a nation shaken from our beliefs that bad things happen "over there".  Regardless of whether "over there" is a desert 8000 km from home or a 2 hour flight south to the US, these things don't happen to us, in our hometown.

Except they do.  Over the past 24 hours since the shooting at the National War Memorial and the Parliamentary lock down, we have been reminded that these things can and do indeed happen in Canada - except we forget.  Ask a 20-something to tell you about the FLQ crisis, or gas rationing, or even more recently the time a car thought to be filled with explosives was parked on Parliament Hill and you will likely be met with a confused look.

Ask these same young adults if they recall a time when the public could drive onto parliament hill and, if you were feeling lucky, might even park-risking a parking ticket- to be closer to the market.  This is a generation with no living memory of things that we who are older remember fondly.  We remember a time pre 9/11 when the coolest way to get from Nicholas St to Colonel By Drive was via Tunnel UNDER DND headquarters.  And yet, even we who do remember, we also learned the hard way.

Every generation needs the memory of the generation before to ensure we know the whole story.

This is especially seen at Remembrance Day, When we stand side by side with those who remember things we cannot possibly remember ourselves.

This is the value of tradition and historical aspects of our instiutions.

I must admit, prior to yesterday I simply didn't know what the role Parliament's Sergeant-at-Arms held.  Like many I forgot to look past the trappings the quaint robe (silently wondering who rid the role of a powdered wig) and the massive Mace (what is a Mace anyway?) and understand.  We often fail to see that the pomp and circumstance is not just for fun.  It all has a purpose, sure, maybe some of those purposes are outdated and no longer needed (like the two-sword's length separation between the opposition benches to avoid bloodshed in Parliament) but that doesn't mean they ought to be abandoned for the sake of modernity.

This tragic day reminds us, that we are one of the 'big kids' in global politics, that we have a sophisticated and capable response framework that keeps us safe.

I think its extraordinarily Canadian that one of the main goals of our heroic Sergeant-at-Arms is to protect unobtrusively.  I suspect many Canadians were surprised at the speed and sheer volume of response to the threat simply because we don't show our might the same way others do.

I am a prouder Canadian today than I was yesterday- and that's saying something!