Statement made on 01 November 2011 by Senator Roméo Dallaire
Hon. Roméo Antonius Dallaire:
Honourable senators, I did not plan on talking about the Royal 22nd Regiment. However, last Saturday night, I attended an event at the Valcartier military base. It was a fundraiser for the Valcartier Military Family Resource Centre, which looks after families of soldiers in the greater Quebec City area who have served overseas and are currently serving in our Armed Forces. There were more than 700 guests and the organization raised $377,000. This money is very important to the organization in order to support its operations. The Treasury Board does not think it is appropriate for the centre to be funded by the federal government. People on the base believe that this money is essential to meet their needs.
The Valcartier and La Citadelle bases are the home bases of the Royal 22nd Regiment. The emblem of the Royal 22nd Regiment is a beaver. Therefore, they are known as the "queues plates," or the flat tails.
My father joined the 22nd Regiment at La Citadelle as a soldier in 1929, and my father-in-law joined the 22nd Regiment at La Citadelle in 1928 as a lieutenant.
It is interesting to follow the history of the beaver within the Armed Forces. In 1871, before the Canadian Armed Forces were created, there were militia regiments under British rule that regularly used the beaver on their emblems. After the Armed Forces were established in 1871 and until they were mobilized in 1914, the Canadian Army and many of the regiments that were created used the beaver as their emblem. They had two emblems: the beaver and the maple leaf.
Of all the regiments that were mobilized during the Second World War — as it happens, this is the time of year when we remember our military history and our veterans — 178 were infantry regiments. Only one of these 178 infantry regiments was a francophone regiment. All the other francophones were scattered throughout the rest of the army. At that time there was a fear that if the francophones were grouped together, they would create a second army, and God knows what they might have done. Their loyalty was in doubt.
The point is that the only French Canadian regiment chose the beaver as its emblem. Below the beaver are the words "Je me souviens" or "I remember." Why? It is not necessarily because beavers have good memories, although they seem to be able to get things organized around the lakes where they live but, rather, because "Je me souviens" has ties with the former French regime. The former regime was based on the fur trade, which was successful because of the beaver; therefore there was a direct link.
When the new flag was adopted in 1967, my father, who had served under the Red Ensign, was offended. He said, "I fought under the Red Ensign but I am prepared to accept the new flag because it has a maple leaf on it." There was still a link.
When the beaver became Canada's national emblem in 1975, it had a fundamental link with nearly 400 years of history. The beaver is still around. It is found on the berets of soldiers in the Royal 22nd Regiment, on armoured vehicles and on the uniforms of the engineers who died at the front, demining the path to the right and to the left, so that the other beavers of the Royal 22nd Regiment could carry out their mission. This is not the time to toy with serious things, honourable senators. It is not the time to toy with the loyalty and conviction of people who die while displaying their national emblem.