Canadian Guards hold last reunion leading up to Remembrance Day
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The Canadian Guards may have finally been disbanded in 1970, as part of a military reduction by then Prime Minster Pierre Trudeau, but its brotherhood-like members have kept in touch.
The Guards have an active association and have had reunions every so often over the last four decades.
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But the very last reunion was held a few weeks ago at CFB Petawawa in the Ottawa Valley and among those attending was Clifford Pierce (father of Toronto Sun sports editor and Postmedia sports executive producer Bill Pierce), whose early part of his 31-year military career (1959-1990) was in the Guards.
“You wouldn’t want to be around — you’d see a bunch of old men reminiscing, sometimes tearfully” said Pierce, 76, of how the final reunion went down.
Pierce was particularly happy to spend time with three old friends from the Guards – Peter Ambroziak (Ottawa), Peter Crampton (ORO-Medonte, Ont.) and Ross Quantz (Mississauga).”
“Because we’re all getting too old it was decided that this would be the last reunion. About 340 people attended from all across Canada and one person even travelled from England. So it was really the end of the National Regimental Association and we’ll have to meet otherwise on a different basis. But that’s why it was a big event for me, and a big event for all the people who came, because it was the last one.”
Pierce, who eventually retired as a lieutenant colonel in the Logistics Branch, says being in the senior infantry regiment in the Canadian Armed Forces involved a variety of duties, both as field soldiers and Public Duties.
“We used to do all sorts of things,” he said. “In Ottawa, when the Queen Mother came or when President (John F.) Kennedy came we formed big Guards of Honour and other related tasks. Well, that was the Canadian Guards.
“It was a battalion of the regiment that mounted those guards. The Regiment also did the changing of the guard at Parliament Hill up until about 1965, or around there. And then it became a task assigned to the militia, the Governor General’s Foot Guards and others out of Ottawa. But we did it for about half of the 1960s. When dignitaries came, it was called a Guard of Honour.”
For Remembrance Day, Pierce will take part in whatever local ceremony is happening in St. Catharines, Ont., where he lives, and enjoys watching the annual Ottawa ceremonies which he tapes.
“There are so many faces of people who I know — less and less as the years go on,” said Pierce. “But it’s such a joy to see their faces and to know they’re still around, a lot of them too.”
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