It is on this day, at this hour, at this minute that many nations around the world pause and contemplate in quiet remembrance to honour the many armed forces members who died in the line of duty. I like to take a moment here as well to do the same.

On November 11, on the eleventh hour, at the eleventh minute, the hostilities of World War I ceased. In memory of that moment, in many Commonwealth nations and in other countries around the world, we stop and remember. In the decades since, we have come to use this moment to recognize our veterans.

Canadian poet, John McCrae, would write a poem that would become forever immortalized as a memorial of the April 1915 battle in Belgium’s Ypres salient.

In Flanders fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row,

    That mark our place; and in the sky

    The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

    Loved and were loved, and now we lie,

        In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:

To you from failing hands we throw

    The torch; be yours to hold it high.

    If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

        In Flanders fields.

This year there are new horrors of war of a kind that we hoped would never come again. And not only as there are many conflicts around the world that we hope we could solve in better ways.

Yet we remain hopeful that in memory we can find all of our ways towards something better.

We remember.