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Alberta

Honouring Canada’s Military History – Veteran’s Week

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“November 5-11 is Veteran’s Week, honoring those who have served Canada, past and present, in times of war, military conflict, and peace.” 

Veteran’s Week is dedicated to promoting the education and understanding of Canadian military history, and preserving and honoring the memory of those men and women who dedicated themselves to protecting and fostering freedom and peace. This year, Veteran’s Week recognizes the 75th anniversary of the end of the Second World War, where more than one million Canadians served in the military and countless more on the home front, supplementing industry and agricultural efforts for the war. 

Veterans Affairs Canada encourages all Canadians to learn more about the sacrifices and achievements made by those who served our country, and to help preserve their legacy by passing the torch of Remembrance to future generations of Canadians.” 

Veteran’s Week is a reminder to those of us who have experienced the violence and devastation of war only through textbooks or television to never take for granted the rights, freedoms and institutions we access on a daily basis in Canada. The men and women who selflessly stepped up to serve their country were mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, friends and loved ones whose lives would be forever changed by their service. Those who survived face lifelong battles of physical and mental trauma, and those who were lost, many of them young soldiers, would never return to enjoy the peace and liberty they had sacrificed everything to defend. 

Every year, Veterans Affairs Canada encourages public engagement and participation in Veteran’s Week by sharing the stories of those who served, hosting public events and remembrance ceremonies, and commissioning commemorative Veteran’s Week posters.

“Veterans want Canadians to understand the price of freedom.” (1)

One of this year’s Veteran’s Week posters features the story of retired Sergeant Norman Harold Kirby, who enlisted to serve in the Second World War in 1943 at just 17 years old. During his time as a soldier, he stormed Juno Beach on June 6, 1944 as a part of the D-Day assault, served in the Battle of Normandy, and fought in France, Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands. He was discharged in September of 1945 having led a distinguished military career, and was eventually awarded the Field-Marshal Montgomery Award for Gallantry and the Ordre National de la Légion d’honneur and a knighthood from the French Republic.
After his discharge in 1945 he returned to his home in North Vancouver, still very much a young man. “I was only 19 years old when I got home,” he says, “not even old enough to vote or have a beer with my father” (2).

The second 2020 Veteran’s Week poster features the retired, married veterans Corporal Anne McNamara and Flying Officer Howard McNamara.
Howard enlisted in December 1941 and graduated senior flying training in Windsor Mills, Quebec, with his younger brother. He flew in the North African Campaign in 1942, after which he transferred from Egypt to serve in the Italian Campaign. He retired in March of 1945 at the plea of his remaining family, after learning of the death of his younger brother, who had been shot down while flying over Europe.
Anne joined the Royal Canadian Air Force in 1943 as a member of the Entertainment Unit, a traveling show of 30 or so people who performed on the Allied bases almost every night to keep spirits and morale among soldiers high. Anne traveled across North America and to Great Britain with the Entertainment Unit, where she witnessed the severe damage done by German bombing raids and experienced the fear of the air raid sirens herself. She retired in March of 1946 following the end of the war, after which she met her future husband Howard. The two were married in May of 1948, and currently reside in St. Laurent, Quebec (3).

“Remembering and reflecting on the significance of the contribution they made, and continue to make, strengthens the commitment to preserve the values that they fought and died for – truth, justice, peace, freedom and knowledge.” (4)

These stories offer just a glance into the lived experiences of thousands of Canadian veterans who aided military and industry efforts during some of the darkest times in our national and global history. This Veteran’s Week, explore opportunities to engage with Canadian military history at the local and national levels, and pay respect to our Canadian veterans and active service members as we approach Remembrance Day on November 11. 

For more information on Veteran’s Week, visit https://www.veterans.gc.ca/eng/remembrance/get-involved/veterans-week.

Alberta

Sylvan Lake high school football coach fired for criticizing gender ideology sends legal letter to school board

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From LifeSiteNews

By Anthony Murdoch

The letter on behalf of Alberta high school volunteer football coach Taylor ‘Teej’ Johannesson mentions ‘workplace harassment’ while demanding his job back.

A Sylvan Lake high school football coach who was fired for sharing his views opposing transgender ideology on social media in a video discussing his Christian faith sent a legal demand to his former school board demanding he get his job back.

H.J. Cody High School volunteer coach Taylor “Teej” Johannesson, as reported by LifeSiteNews, earlier this month was fired by his school’s principal because he spoke out against gender-confused youth who “take their hatred of Christians” to another level by committing violent acts against them.

School principal Alex Lambert fired Teej, as he is known, as a result of a TikTok video in which he speaks out against radical gender ideology and the dangers it brings.

In a recent update involving his case, local media with knowledge of Johannesson’s issues with the principal at H.J. Cody High School in Sylvan Lake, Alberta, confirmed a legal demand letter was sent to the school.

The letter reads, “From his perspective, this opposition is consistent with the Alberta government’s position and legislation prohibiting prescribing prescription hormones to minors and providing care to them that involves transition surgeries.”

In the letter, the school board’s “workplace harassment” procedure is mentioned, stating, “Any act of workplace harassment or workplace violence shall be considered unacceptable conduct whether that conduct occurs at work, on Division grounds, or at division-sponsored activities.”

The legal demand letter, which was sent to school officials last week, reads, “Given that Mr. Johannesson’s expression in the TikTok Video was not connected to his volunteer work, the principal and the division have no authority to regulate his speech and punish him by the Termination decision, which is ultra vires (“beyond the powers.)”

Johannesson has said, in speaking with local media, that his being back at work at the school as a volunteer coach has meaning: “It’s about trying to create some change within the school system.”

He noted how, for “too long,” a certain “political view, one ideology, has taken hold in the school system.”

Johannesson has contacted Alberta’s Chief of Staff for the Minister of Education about his firing and was told that there is a board meeting taking place over the demand letter.

According to Teej, Lambert used his TikTok video as an excuse to get rid of someone in the school with conservative political views and who is against her goal to place “safe space stickers” all over the school.

Teej has been in trouble before with the school administration. About three years ago, he was called in to see school officials for posting on Twitter a biological fact that “Boys have a penis. Girls have a vagina.”

Alberta’s Conservative government under Premier Danielle Smith has in place a new policy protecting female athletes from gender-confused men that has taken effect across the province.

As LifeSiteNews previously reported, the Government of Alberta is currently fighting a court order that is blocking the province’s newly passed ban on transgender surgeries and drugs for children.

Alberta also plans to ban books with sexually explicit as well as pornographic material, many of which contain LGBT and even pedophilic content, from all school libraries.

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Alberta

Parents group blasts Alberta government for weakening sexually explicit school book ban

Published on

From LifeSiteNews

By Anthony Murdoch

The revised rules no longer place restrictions on written descriptions of sexual content.

Some parental rights advocates have taken issue with the Conservative government of Alberta’s recent updates to a ban on sexually explicit as well as pornographic material from all school libraries, saying the new rules water down the old ones as they now allow for descriptions of extreme and graphic sexual acts in written form.

As reported by LifeSiteNews last week, Alberta Education Minister Demetrios Nicolaides of the ruling United Conservative Party (UCP) released revised rules outlining the province’s ban on sexually explicit content in school libraries.

The original ban included all forms of sexually explicit as well as pornographic material. However, after a large public school board alleged the ban applied to classic books, the government changed the rules, removing a clause for written sexual content that has some parental rights groups up in arms.

Tanya Gaw, founder of the conservative-leaning Action4Canada, noted to media that while she is happy with Premier Danielle Smith for the original book ban, she has deep concerns with the revised rules.

“We are very concerned about the decision that no longer places restrictions on written descriptions of those acts, which is problematic,” she said in an interview with The Epoch Times.

Gaw noted how kids from kindergarten to grade 12 should “never” be “exposed to graphic written details of sex acts: incest, molestation, masturbation, sexual assaults, and profane vulgar language.”

According to John Hilton-O’Brien, who serves as the executive director of Parents for Choice in Education, the new rule changes regarding written depictions “still shifts the burden onto parents to clean up what should never have been purchased in the first place.”

He did say, however, that the new “Ministerial Order finally makes catalogs public, and what we see there is troubling.”

Alberta’s revised rules state that all school library books must not contain “explicit visual depictions of a sexual act.” To make it clear, the standards in detail go over the types of images that are banned due to their explicit pornographic nature.

As reported by LifeSiteNews in May, Smith’s UCP government went ahead with plans to ban books with sexually explicit as well as pornographic material, many of which contain LGBT and even pedophilic content, from all school libraries.

The ban was to take effect on October 1.

The UCP’s crackdown on sexual content in school libraries comes after several severely sexually explicit graphic novels were found in school libraries in Calgary and Edmonton.

The pro-LGBT books in question at multiple school locations are Gender Queer, a graphic novel by Maia Kobabe; Flamer, a graphic novel by Mike Curato; Blankets, a graphic novel by Craig Thompson; and Fun Home, a graphic novel by Alison Bechdel.

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