CBC News - Prince Edward Island - White poppy denigrates remembrance: Legion
The Royal Canadian Legion is upset over a new campaign launched by the Island Peace Committee on Prince Edward Island.The Legion wants the group to stop distributing white poppies. The Legion's red-poppy campaign is underway, selling the traditional symbol in remembrance of those who died in war.
Peace committee members say their white version stands for non-violent conflict resolution.
"The people who are distributing these poppies are normally people who have never spent a day in the service of their country in their lives," Jim Ross, president of the Legion's P.E.I. provincial command, told CBC News on Monday. "To denigrate a symbol of the remembrance of people who died for this country certainly is emotional."
Ross said the Legion owns the rights to the poppy symbol, and its national office will likely be writing the peace committee to ask it to stop the white-poppy campaign.
Do you feel they should be allowed to sell their white poppies at the same time vets are trying to sell their red poppies for Remembrance Day?
Or should they stop?
Or should they perhaps just distribute their white poppies during another time of the year?
For me, I'd first like to know where the money for their white poppies is going to, or if people pay for them in the first place..... but secondly, if they're that up for distributing these poppies, fine.... but do it at another time of the year. As I see these, it's a protest against wars and violence, but it's also a direct attack on Remembrance Day itself by trying to distribute them during this time...... and if that's the case, then these idiots obviously do not understand what Remembrance Day is all about.
It's not about glorifying or promoting violence and war, it's about showing respect and remembering the sacrifices men and women made in order to stop tyranny and defend those who could not defend themselves..... most of these men and women were probably even younger then those handing out these white poppies and never had the chances to experience the freedoms, luxuries, let alone their own lives that these people take for granted.
Perhaps their message is to be a noble one, but their approach and their timing is pretty bad.