John Abbott College hosts annual Remembrance Day ceremony honouring Canada’s veterans and fallen
John Abbott College hosted its annual Remembrance Day ceremony Thursday on its Memorial Field, bringing together students, veterans and community members to honour Canada’s veterans and fallen.
Veterans and dignitaries sat at centrefield, encircled by students from Macdonald High, John Abbott and Mac Campus. Children from Pierre Elliott Trudeau, Edgewater and St-Pat’s elementary schools watched from the stands, most of them clutching small Canadian flags.
The bilingual ceremony was co-hosted by Makayla Wight, president of the Student Union of John Abbott College, and Jolene Xu, the union’s vice-president external. Sgt. 1st Class Ray Deer, a former member of the Royal Montreal Regiment and a 21-year U.S. Army veteran, opened with a land acknowledgement. The Macdonald High School band performed the national anthem, and Master Warrant Rick Cartmel, a former Black Watch officer and combat engineer, read “Why We Are Gathered Here Today.”
Students, veterans and community members read poems during the ceremony. Lt. (N) Nikolas Dolmat, a John Abbott alumnus and logistics officer in the Royal Canadian Naval Reserve, recited “Gratitude,” a poem he wrote while in high school. Students from Macdonald High School and McGill’s Macdonald Campus also took part in the readings.
Representatives of McGill University and the Lester B. Pearson School Board also made remarks. John Abbott College director general Teresa Berghello gave closing remarks.
After a bagpipe performance of “Amazing Grace,” retired Col. Andrew Lussier, a John Abbott alumnus who served 35 years in the Canadian Forces, read the Act of Remembrance in English. Const. Gilles Allard, who served 32 years with the RCMP, read it in French.
John Halpin, the college’s former director general, closed the ceremony by performing “Pittance of Time.”
A procession led by the Grenadier Guards then moved to the War Memorial in front of Macdonald’s Raymond Building. The site honours 34 students from Macdonald College and Macdonald High School who were killed in the First World War, and oak trees planted 76 years ago stand in their memory. Two wreaths were laid at the memorial, and attendees placed small Canadian flags around it in honour of the fallen.
