This cartoon regarding the passing of a NDP motion in Parliament to give the last surviving veteran of the First World War a state funeral caused a bit of a stir. Here’s some feedback:
First a letter from a local reader of the Spec:
A not so favourable response following its printing in the Halifax Chronicle-Herald:
And my defence to one of the emails sent by people conveying their discomfort:
I think the whole state funeral discussion took on a macabre tone, but I decided I wasn’t going to ignore it. I mean, here we are with the last 3 soldiers standing (actually 2 since one dropped out because he’s live in the U.S. since 1924) and it has taken on this contest feel as to who’s going to win the privilege of a state funeral. I’m just surprised that it’s been made into this big public news event. Surely, they (the Dominion Institute) or Veteran’s Affairs could’ve raised the issue once we were down to the last veteran. With Jack Layton and the NDP sponsoring this as a bill, I just saw it as blatant political opportunism. They know they need to patch up things with the military, keeping in mind their cut and run policies, but especially after some in the NDP accused our soldiers in Afghanistan as “terrorists”. Maybe I’m not giving the NDP credit when it’s due, but I don’t buy that this was just a motion to “collectively celebrate the sacrifice of all WWI veterans”. There was more to it in terms of scoring political points for the NDP. It was smart, because who’s going to argue in the House of Commons not to have a state funeral for the last veteran?