November 10, 2024
The Empire Club of Canada Presents
Canada and War: Changing Experiences and Attitudes – Wars Past, Present, and to Come
Chairperson: Gordon McIvor, Past President, Board of Directors, Empire Club of Canada; President, Empire Club of Canada Foundation
Moderator
Gilbert Reid, Writer and Broadcaster, Founding Director, The King and Empire Foundation
Panellists
Gertrude Kearns, C.M., Canadian War Artist
Cayle Oberwarth, OMM, MSM, CD, Brigadier-General, Commander 4th Canadian Division & Joint Task Force (Central)
Jonathan F. Vance, Professor, Western University, Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada
Welcome Address by Dr. Gordon McIvor, Past President, Empire Club of Canada; President, Empire Club of Canada Foundation
Good afternoon, and welcome to the first public event hosted by the Empire Club Foundation. My name is Gordon McIvor. I’m a proud past president of the Empire Club of Canada, and the president of the Foundation. Our foundation was set up over 50 years ago, in 1969, to expand the reach of the club into the realm of academia and policy research, offering one of the largest repositories of original source material in the country, through more than 4,000 speeches that have been delivered at this podium, since we commenced operations back in 1903.
Last month, we launched a new state-of-the-art website, with AI features, a chatbot, instantaneous translation, and a robust search engine, allowing researchers to easily access this important historical resource. Next month, we will unveil a Heritage Toronto plaque, along with Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow, to mark the birthplace of the Empire Club, as an important component of the history of Canada. Many other foundation projects are currently underway, or in the planning stages, and we invite you all to visit our new website for details of these various initiatives, at empireclubfoundation.org.
Today, as part of our historical mandate, we are thrilled to bring you a Remembrance Day-themed event that is as timely as it is important, “Canada and War, Changing Experiences and Attitudes, Wars Past, Present, and To Come.”
Now, as many of you will know, we are streaming this live on National Indigenous Veterans Day, observed on November the 8th. The beaded poppy that I’m wearing today was made to bring honour and recognition to First Nations, Inuit, and Métis soldiers, who served in the two World Wars, and the Korean War, and to the many more who are serving to this day in the Canadian Armed Forces. We acknowledge today that this event is originating on the Traditional Territory of many nations, including the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishinaabe, the Chippewa, and the Haudenosaunee Peoples, as well as the Wendat Peoples, and is now home to many diverse First Nations, Inuit, and Métis. We also recognize Toronto is covered by Treaty 13, with the Mississaugas of the Credit. We honour the enduring presence and deep concerns that Indigenous Peoples have to this land, and acknowledge the history that has brought us together here today. We commit to ongoing learning and reflection on our role in working toward Reconciliation, and fostering a more inclusive and respectful community.
Now, unlike our colleagues at the Empire Club, our events at the foundation are not financed by sponsorships, but rather through donations. And today’s event is made possible through a very generous donation from the Canada Company, and its leader, Mr. Blake Goldring. Mr. Goldring is a recipient of the Meritorious Service Medal from the Governor General, for his work and support of our military services, and is a member of the Order of Ontario, and a member of the Order of Canada—much of which is a reflection of his lifelong service to those who serve in our Armed Forces, their families, and the families of the fallen. A very special thanks to Mr. Goldring, and to the Canada Company, for being a donor to this inaugural event.
Now, before I pass the gavel to our moderator for today’s event, let me underline for you how important a theme war has been, in the more than 120 years of the Empire Club history. Many of our club’s most famous guest speakers have spoken extensively on this topic, reporting on news from various war fronts, but reflecting on what that news meant for Canada, and for the world. As we’ll see today, attitudes toward war and its inevitable fallout into the history of nations has evolved substantially over the past century. And to make this point, we could quote many of our speakers, from Winston Churchill to His Royal Highness, the Prince of Wales. It’s important to remind ourselves here, however, that while many of the war-related speeches delivered at the Empire Club contain information and geopolitical dynamics that are as real in 2024, as they were when the speech was originally delivered.
An excellent example occurred, in fact, in the year of my birth, 1954, when the first Secretary General of the United Nations, Dag Hammarskjöld, told the Empire Club audience that one of his biggest preoccupations in the world was what he referred to as, quote, “The dangerous problem in Palestine.” The warning was real, and as we all know, only too well remains one of the biggest issues facing us today, exactly 70 years later. And he said words that, in fact, could have been written last fall, just prior to the horrendous events of October 7. And here’s a quote from that speech, which, again, is timeless, “The problem is still far from any solution, and the danger of a breakdown in the armistice continues to be a cause for concern to the member governments in the Security Council, and to me, as Secretary General.” So, not everything changes, and we have a certain consistency in the historical conflicts that have troubled the world, over our lifetime. But to come back to today’s topic, the attitudes to these conflicts, and to the notion of war in general, seems to have followed a very different trajectory, causing new and often unexpected attitudes to emerge. That is what we want to zoom in on today.
To help us explore this topic, we have secured, as the moderator of this distinguished panel, a well-known author and broadcaster, Mr. Gilbert Reid, who keeps himself closely aligned with what we could call societal direction. That being how and why we come to have the beliefs that guide our actions, and indeed, our lives. Gilbert’s command of current events is second-to-none, but his knowledge of history and socioeconomic movements is what really separates him from the crowd. He will keep us on topic, and on time today. So, Gilbert, a real pleasure to welcome you back to the podium of the Empire Club of Canada, and to the Empire Club Foundation. Welcome.
Introduction by Gilbert Reid, Writer and Broadcaster, Founding Director, The King and Empire Foundation
Gordon, thank you. I’m intimidated—well, it was too generous, actually—and I’m intimidated by our panel. So, I’ll introduce them, briefly, and then we will plunge in. Gertrude Jerns is a war artist. And Gertrude, you span two worlds, the world of the military, and of war, and of conflict, and the world of art, and artists, and galleries. It’s not an easy thing to do, to span those, to straddle those two worlds, I think. And you don’t pull your punches, though you’re a great admirer of the military. Some of your paintings of commanders and of soldiers in action, who have seen action—and they’ve all seen action—are incredibly moving, and etched, you see in those faces, the emotions, and the experience of so many of the officers you have portrayed. And you, not only don’t pull your punches, but you have been in and close to the action yourself, as an embedded artist in Afghanistan. And you’ve become very close to many of the commanders, and officers, and soldiers that you have portrayed. And you don’t pull your punches, in showing also, the ethical conundrums and conflicts that are involved in conflict. So, it will be interesting to explore some of your work, and your attitudes.
General Oberwarth, you scare me even more than Gertrude does, because you’ve seen command, you’ve seen action, you’ve been on reconnaissance, you’ve been in conflict, you’ve been in wars, you’ve been in peacekeeping operations in Africa, in the ex-Yugoslavia, in Afghanistan, and elsewhere, in multiple roles, from the cutting edge of the front line, to the lofty spheres of planning, and strategy, and staff work. All of which make an incredible combination of experience, and visceral life, in, in what it is to be a soldier today. An exciting, and intimidating, as I said.
Jonathan F. Vance is one of Canada’s leading historians, who’s explored the history of our military, the history of attitudes to the military, how memory is incarnated in monuments, and films, and books, and in works of art, how attitudes to war and to the military have changed. And he has written a splendid, extraordinary history of Canadian culture, the way we have changed over the decades, that this country has existed.
So, before I plunge in with you chaps—who know much more than I do—I just make a quick remark, I think. We Canadians think we are very peaceful people. And in the post-war, post-World War II period, we’ve learned that we are very peaceful. And we’ve forgotten about war, to a certain extent, though we have been involved in wars. But this country was actually born and structured through war, through the French, British, Indian Wars, of the Native Wars, of the 17th and 18th centuries, the American Revolution, which sent a lot of people north, including Natives, to what would become Canada, the War of 1812, the American Civil War, which forced us to bang our heads together and become a nation. And then the two Great World Wars, and the other wars that followed them. So, this country has been forged in, and structured by, and created, to a certain extent, by war. So, that’s the past. But as William Faulkner, the American writer, said, “The past is not really dead. It’s not even past.” General Oberwarth, you’ve been in wars, and in peacekeeping operations. Can you give me a brief sketch of the experience of being in wars, real conflict operations, and also peacekeeping, which is perhaps even more delicate, in some ways, than actual conflict?
Cayle Oberwarth, OMM, MSM, CD, Brigadier-General, Commander 4th Canadian Division & Joint Task Force (Central)
Yeah. So, so thank you so much for, for having me with you today. It’s a real pleasure to be here, so close to Remembrance Day. So, so thank you, and thank you to the rest of the panel. What I’d like to be able to do is, we’ll start by saying that what I can share with you are my own experiences, in both peace support operations, and in conflict. You know, we did fight a global War on Terror, the conflict in Afghanistan, but certainly, it might not be reflective of the war experience of people, say, during World War II or World War I. So, I just want to be able to get that out. As well, my experiences are my experiences. I can’t speak for every soldier that’s gone through what, what I’ve gone through. I can’t speak for them, for what they’ve, they’ve experienced themselves. But I will share with you what I have.
We’ll start with peace support operations, and maybe domestic operations. And my first peace support operation or domestic operation was in 1999. I was, we were called out to respond to the Swissair 111 crash. And possibly, one of the most poignant things about peace support operations was said to us at that time by my company commander, who said, “Company, this is not a job for soldiers, but this is a job only soldiers can do.” And this is certainly something that I hoisted aboard, at that time. And then, you know, following that, with deployments in, in Bosnia, and Ethiopia and Eritrea, as well as in Congo, it’s always something that stuck with me. That there are things that soldiers are trained to do, which is fight war, fight and win our nation’s wars, but oftentimes, we’re called to do things that go beyond that.
And as you mentioned, Gilbert, something more—peace support operations, frankly, in some ways, are less dangerous, but more subtle, and more nuanced, and thusly, sometimes more difficult. For combat operations, this is an entirely different story. And I’ll tell you, my experiences in combat operations would suggest that it’s very exciting. We train extensively, to be able to deploy. And, I mean, my father was a soldier for 35 years, and never fired a shot in anger, and, and lived during the Cold War. In my experiences, you know, I had trained before going into Afghanistan on my second mission, where we were really fighting quite a lot. You know, I had been in the military about 13 years, at that point. And we, as soldiers, frankly, we’re excited to get into action.
But the, the interesting dichotomy here is, as much as we were excited to get into it, as soon as it started, we’re using everything at our disposal to make it stop. You know, because it’s, it’s fun to get, fun to get a shot at and missed, as Winston Churchill once said, but of course, that wears thin very quickly. And then, what we were doing is using all of our tactical and technical expertise to win whatever battle we were in, to make the fighting stop. So, I think that’s a viable opening, and I’ll leave it there.
Gilbert Reid
I was just going to say, in some of the territory, particularly around Kandahar, the Panjwayi area, was very difficult for Canadians, I think. The…
Cayle Oberwarth
Indeed.
Gilbert Reid
…difficult thing to fight in.
Cayle Oberwarth
Indeed, yes. And so, that was where certainly my second deployment to Afghanistan, we fought up and down, throughout the Panjwayi, up along the Arghandab River. And that, that’s certainly where my company was deployed, a combat team was deployed for, for those months.
Gilbert Reid
It’s not an easy life, but it’s an exciting one.
Cayle Oberwarth
It certainly is. And, and I will tell you, the interesting part about it is, is that every soldier in the Canadian Army is a volunteer, which makes it entirely different than what we were experiencing in some places around the world right now. So, the soldiers we bring in are, are dedicated to duty and to service. They want to serve, they want to do the difficult jobs, they wanted to get their hands dirty. And they bring with them all aspects of what it’s like to be a Canadian. And we’re talking about history today. We bring that history with us, wherever we go. And there’s one thing that is immutable about a Canadian soldier, is just that fact. He and she is Canadian. The Canadian Armed Forces, the C is the most important part. We are Canadian, and we represent our values, we represent our country, and we bring that with us wherever we go. And that is what’s kept me in the military this long. I enjoy being around Canadians. I enjoy doing difficult things with Canadian soldiers that others would rather not do. But we’re volunteers, and, and I’d like to believe that, in my experience, we’ve always held out very well, and shown ourselves to be professionals in this domain.
Gilbert Reid
Gertrude bridges the worlds of the civilians, and the artists, and the cultural people, and the military. Gertrude, how did you get into this, and why did you get into this? Because it’s not a natural fit, in the present zeitgeist, in the zeitgeist of the last number of decades, for an artist to be a war artist. It was and is a glorious tradition, but it’s not an easy world. Those are not too easy worlds to, to straddle, art and the military. Why did you get into it and how do you live it?
Gertrude Kearns, C.M., Canadian War Artist
I got into it in 1990, with the Gulf Crisis, because I, I’d had a latent interest in knowing about Canadian defence. And I made the big shift from doing bodies of large abstract work, to deciding I would just put whatever talents I had at hand into focusing on Canadian Forces material, as a way to get into learning about national defence. I’ll just mention, briefly, my father, who was 21 years older than my mother, was a World War One veteran, and fought with the Austro-Hungarian Empire. And he passed, my dad passed away in 1990. So, that, I mean, that was a, certainly on the back burner of my psyche, I’m sure. It’s been a circuitous route, the last, like, 30, 31 years—actually, 34 years—dealing with conflict. But I’d say that, more specifically, the last 30 years from 1994, when I was fascinated by General Dallaire’s conundrum in Rwanda, and the extenuating circumstances. And even up to this day, what I find with any military project is that you learn more stuff, as time goes by. It’s like it’s not, it’s never dead. It’s like history.
So, from looking at Rwanda and General Dallaire, and then—that was all research, because he was so deluged, so psychologically bereft and unstable, as he would be the first to admit. It was all research. But it was General MacKenzie who was, who I met at my Dallaire show, my two-year project on Dallaire, which was in downtown Toronto in 2002. And General MacKenzie came to the show. And I started to research him a little bit. And I thought, these are two very different generals, who’ve dealt with UN missions quite differently. So, I, he agreed to start some sittings, and I had 10 short sittings with him, of about 2 hours each—usually, sittings are about 3 hours—but some works developed. And through that, his generous emphasis of the importance of leadership. And I’d say that the creation of the, the war print I did of him, which was a large, a large portrait, with the text, “Keep the peace, or I’ll kill you.”
Gilbert Reid
Yes, that was one of your nice conceptual pieces….
Gertrude Kearns
I mean, not, not—it is conceptual. I mean, MacKenzie actually said those words, when he was looking at the huge painting I had done, which is in the War Museum collection. He said, “It’s saying, ‘keep the peace or I’ll kill you.’” And then, he continued with this conversation. And when he left, I thought—I was thunderstruck. I thought, this is—what he said, what I recognized was, first of all, the oxymoron potential, but also, the, the mission concept aspect of, of that text. So, between Dallaire on one hand, and MacKenzie, it started a, it started 30 years of very presumptuously trying to consider what, what all these fine professionals do. I mean, there’s, I’ve worked with some, some commanders who, there are negative things out there about them now. But I would still vouch for the professionalism of all of them, in many respects. Maybe [Indiscernible]….
Gilbert Reid
Let’s look at two of the works now.
Gertrude Kearns
Sorry?
Gilbert Reid
Let’s look at two of the works now.
Gertrude Kearns
All right.
Gilbert Reid
What you’re doing with those works.
Gertrude Kearns
So, are you looking—oh, here we go. This is a seven-by-five foot painting of General Dallaire, which I did in 2002. Dallaire number six, with his hands over his face, painted on, camouflage. I had the incredible opportunity to be at West Point, just a month ago, as part of a symposium on genocide, when Dallaire has, he donated his papers to West Point. So, this is a poster I created, based on the, the painting. So, it’s a new piece, just with the title of the showing from over 20 years ago, “Undone.” On being, you know, him being psychologically undone, represents the UN, what, how maybe things might have played out, but how things did play out. So, like a multi-tiered pun, on the word “undone.”
Yes, that was number six, in six large camouflage portraits showing him at different stages, from gung-ho with mission zeal to, you know, absolute, you know, facing the reality of, of a mission that had not gone according to any plan—not that there really was a plan, I suppose. But….
Gilbert Reid
Let’s look at the other one, now.
Gertrude Kearns
Now, this is the one, yes, this is a, a new—well, a four-year portrait of General Carignan. It’s another large piece—just to give the audience a sense of scale, it’s about five-feet-by-four-feet—in the War Museum collection. What was really marvellous about working with General Carignan is that we had, I’d done a, a first portrait of her, sort of a three-quarter figure, you know, with all her kit, pre-her deployment to Baghdad, to command NATO mission Iraq. And that was all from long-life sittings. But during the sittings, I took some headshots. And while she was in Baghdad, we had, I was very fortunate to have an awful lot of communication with her, about how the mission was playing out. And so, I was able to paint this, not only hearing stuff in the news, but actually hearing from her, you know, how she was having to re-visualize the mission, re-conceptualize it, due to certain challenges. So, I hope the painting has got a psychological punch that it is, like with all, all our, so many of our generals, they’re, some of our military people have a very educated, comprehensive ability to look at things, to handle things in time. So, this painting, again, is a more recent one. And I think it’s nice to juxtapose it with the Dallaire piece. So, we have a….
Gilbert Reid
Sorry, I interrupted.
Gertrude Kearns
It’s okay.
Gilbert Reid
The bridge between culture and war is one of the subjects, and memory, is one of the subjects that Jonathan Vance covers, of course, and has covered in many ways, in many aspects. And one of the dreamy moments in world history is 1914, the summer, where everybody said it was the most beautiful summer anybody remembered, which maybe, was projecting back an idea. And then on the 28th of June, a 19-year-old man fired two shots, and killed the Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo, in Bosnia. Things happen in particular places quite often, it seems. Those two shots led to the First World War. Canada was a country of eight million people, boisterous young country, as a nation, at that point. And with those two shots, and the First World War, the great Pax Britannica, the 100 years of relative world peace, and the world system of the 19th century, came to an end. Jonathan, can you take us to that summer, and to the impact on Canada, and Canadian attitudes of the war, and the experience of the war, which was exceptional, an exceptional shock, for the time—and forever, I would say. To you, Jonathan, I think you’re muted.
Jonathan F. Vance, Professor, Western University, Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada
My, my apologies. This was the Golden Summer of 1914—and as you say, it probably looked golden, in comparison to what came later. But it was still regarded as kind of halcyon time. Not a time when Canadians, typically, were focusing on international affairs, particularly not in the, in the Balkans, which for a couple of years beforehand had been unstable. Always, there was always something odd going on there; people referred to it as the “Balkan Powder Keg,” assuming it could go off at any point in time. But it had, there had been stirrings there before, so, the assassinations were not particularly worrisome, I don’t think. Anyways, people were on summer vacation, the weather was glorious, there were lots of other things to do. And what’s particularly interesting is, is how long it takes the possibility for war to actually dawn on the Canadian people. If you follow the newspaper coverage through July, it’s international events; takes them a long time to get to the front pages, there’s a lot of other stuff going on. And so, no one has any particular reason to believe that this assassination will be any more damaging to world peace than anything else that had gone on in the Balkans, in the previous three or four years. And it’s over that weekend, first weekend of August 1914, that events move remarkably quickly, from the Golden Summer to war.
And the other interesting thing we have to remember is that it was a, a holiday weekend. The, most of the Canadian government was out of Ottawa, on, at the cottage, or at the golf club, or whatever. People don’t want to read international news, on the holiday weekend. And they weren’t. And then they come back on, to their workplaces, to their schools, to their towns, to their cities, on the 4th of August, the Tuesday, and their world is at war. So, it does come as a bolt from the blue, and they have to process it, it very quickly. And they process it almost reflexively, as something that the British Empire has to do. And because Britain has to do it, we have to do it. And so, the level of enthusiasm, excitement, is matched only by the level of misapprehension about what the war could actually involve. Everyone is assuming it’s going to be a short war, “Over by Christmas,” is the, is the terminology.
And so, if you look at accounts from that first week or so, the, the one word that you see repeated most often is not catastrophe, or disaster, or chaos; it’s opportunity. They see this war as an opportunity. An opportunity, personally, for themselves to do something great, to be involved in big things. But an opportunity for the country to step onto the world stage, and play the role that it was meant to play. And of course, as we know, it’s only a few months time before it’s made clear that this is not going to be a short war; it’s not going to be over by Christmas. It’s going to be long, and painful, and destructive. But by that time, Canada is fully into it. And there’s really no going back from that stage. And the, the rest of the war, broadly speaking, is a kind of effort, on the part of the nation, to come to terms with that responsibility. We’re in this. What do we have to do to see it through ‘til the end? And all things considered, for a country whose—this was our first great overseas mission, we saw things through to the end quite capably, and with, with great skill, and with great honour.
Gilbert Reid
The Canadian Corps had a rather remarkable reputation towards the end of the war. So, they were considered one of the most effective forces, I believe, on the Western Front.
Jonathan F. Vance
Exactly. They, they had superior leadership, right from 1915, when the first divisions went over. We were fortunate to have Field Marshal Byng, as the as a corps commander, and eventually, Currie, who were really managers, rather than generals. They understood organization, they understood logistics, they understood all those unsexy details that never make it in the papers, but are really essential to success on the battlefield. And they, because they managed the, the backstory of the Canadian Corps so so effectively, the soldiers at the front were almost always well-supported, well-fed, well-armed, well-trained, and could do the best. And yes, you’re right, by the end of the war, the Canadian Corps was the, probably the leading formation on the Allied side, in terms of its success in, in action. After Vimy Ridge, in April 1917, the Canadian Corps never lost another major set piece battle. So, it proved itself mid-war, and was there at the finish.
Gilbert Reid
The first, the first moment when Canadians saw action, as it were, in 1915, was quite a dramatic one, and I think a huge shock for the nation. The Canadians, along with Algerian colonial troops who were next to them, just outside Ypres, were subjected, I believe, to the first use of chlorine poison gas, the first use of poison gas, invented by Fritz Haber, who won the Nobel Prize for something else. That must have been a huge shock to the Canadians. They lost something like 2,000 people in a weekend, which then seemed huge. Later, it was dwarfed by other figures, of course.
Jonathan F. Vance
Yeah. It, it was a tremendous shock. I mean, the consensus now is that the, if the first Canadian division had been better-trained, they would have realized that they were in an impossible position, and retreated. If they’d been less-trained, they would have collapsed, in the face of enemy fire. So, they just had that right level of training and that right level of stubbornness, that they were simply not going to give up their, their ground, no matter who was trying to take it from them. And the, I mean, in a very real sense, they probably, literally, saved the rest of Belgium from falling to German occupation. But it was the image of, of this one Canadian division standing the line around Ypres, and a division that was largely untested in battle. And that’s our, our first big sense that we can play a significant military role in the war. And, and it’s an event that, that follows us, as one of our laurels, throughout the next three years. And a lot of people point back to it as the first demonstration of, of skill, ability, but also just bloody-mindedness, on the battlefield, which is, is sometimes what you need.
Gilbert Reid
The experience of the Western front, and of the great battles like The Somme, Ypres, Passchendaele were bloodbaths, and known for their horrific slaughter on both sides. The myth later, or the attitude to war changed among the elites, in particular, with books like “Goodbye to All That,” and “All Quiet on the Western Front,” and some French novels and autobiographies, out of the trenches. How did Canada’s attitude or the attitude of Canadians—and we can talk about French Canadians, as well as English, and native Canadians—evolve, during and after the war?
Jonathan F. Vance
That’s a very good question. I mean, we see how quickly Canada disarms and demobilizes after the war, in 1919, evidently making it clear that it doesn’t want or can’t afford a large standing army. The military struggles for survival, during the 30’s. Mostly it’s put on a kind of care-and-maintenance basis. It’s clear that Canadians, as a, as a society, have no appetite for, for overseas adventures, of the kind that they just had from 1914 to 1918. There’s a big boom in, in what we would call now anti-war literature. So, it’s, there’s a desire to maybe explore isolation—let’s stay away from Europe for awhile, and see how things go, before jumping in.
However, in fact, when push comes to shove in September 1939, there is, is no hesitation; the response is similar, perhaps even greater than it was in August 1914. There’s not the enthusiasm, the excitement—no one talks about it as an opportunity—but it’s now a job that has to be done. We did this once before. If we don’t follow up what we did in the first war, we’re, we’re betraying our history. So, it’s with a much more business-like attitude that Canada returns to war, in 1939. Because I think everyone knows what it’s like. It’s in everyone’s memory, and it’s all too painful. And they know what to expect, and they know what to avoid, but they also know it’s really something we have to do as a nation.
Gilbert Reid
General—thank you very much for this, Jonathan, that’s fantastic, and I want to come back to you on a couple of other key issues, I think—General, how important are civilian attitudes to the morale and thinking of the professional soldier? Because, as you pointed out, we have a volunteer army. So, it really is an expression of the nation. How do soldiers experience what Canadians, in general, think about the military and its uses?
Cayle Oberwarth
I think, you know, to share some thoughts on this, in relation to our experiences on combat operations—certainly, the last ones we fought in Afghanistan—we always felt very well supported. You know, and certainly believed, when we were going over there, that this is something where the government and the population was behind us, which makes it easier for soldiers to do their jobs. You know, combat is a test of humanity, and it’s a battle of wills, from the individual soldier right up to the national level. And as long as at the national level, that will is there, the soldiers, your Canadian soldiers, are, are ready to do their jobs. And that was certainly my experience, whether on combat operations, or on peace support operations. We have many, many courageous men and women, who were happy to get after doing the business of helping others, or fighting others. And I like to go back to what I often say to folks is that we don’t fight because we hate what’s in front of us, we fight because we love what’s beside us or behind us. And so, I’ve never gone into a theatre where I thought that I didn’t have the support of the population, or the support of our government. Yeah. So, it makes it easier to do our job, that’s for certain.
Gilbert Reid
Yeah. I’m sure that is true. When you’re putting your life on, on the line, and other people’s lives on the line, you want to know that you have the support of your nation, and your people.
Cayle Oberwarth
Indeed.
Gilbert Reid
Gertrude, you swim in the artistic world and the intellectual world. How is the zeitgeist, the spirit of the time, as regards the military war conflict, and the realities of the international situation?
Gertrude Kearns
I think I swim more in the military world. I can’t ,can’t handle, you know, the other, as well. I, I have some nice connections with the art world, but it sort of dwindled. I think these are such tempestuous times. I know that the subject of—well, as an artist, if you are, I mean, historically, that is over the last 30 years, in the contemporary art world, if you’re doing work that’s about war, it’s probably considered not really significant as contemporary art; it’s considered more illustrative.
So, I think some huge things have to happen. If you’ve asked me about the contemporary world, I just, I’m just going to put that in with the rest of society. Some big things are going to have, some big shifts are going to have to happen, I think, if the barometer continues the way it certainly seems. That is, towards possibly requiring national service—I’ve sort of jumped ahead in subject matter, here. But the, the art world, the intellectual, the academic world, is so preoccupied with so much, which is about identity and rights. But in terms of responsibility, I think there’s going to have to be some sort of shift, where identification also includes the notion of, of security, and the country. It’d be great if it didn’t have to be this way. But unfortunately, that’s the way things seem to fall in place, at, at times.
Gilbert Reid
We, we’re living interesting times, just as we saw on Tuesday last. Things are changing, the climate is changing, weather is changing, geopolitics are changing, and technology is changing—war technology, in particular—they’re all changing very quickly. So, we’re living in a new world. You have one work which you call “Polycrisis.” And that term is often used to refer to the multiple crises, which are simultaneously shaking up the world system. Would you want to show us Polycrisis, for a moment, and talk about it, Gertrude?
Gertrude Kearns
Of course. Polycrisis is based on a large portrait that I did early 2024, of General Eyre, while he was still Chief of the Defence Staff. So, it’s a parallel piece to the large portrait. The text, it’s not as conceptual and complex as the text, I think, in most of my other works. It’s pretty straightforward. It’s really, it’s really stealing from his soundbites; I just thought they were so apt. It, you know, security is global. I, I highlight certain areas, like Ukraine and Gaza, you know, obviously. And readiness for the Canadian Forces, there’s certainly an urgency, there. So, there was a, just in in constructing the portrait, is five long sittings. Getting that hand, which is raised on our left side of the screen, with CIF Canadian Forces underneath it, it’s that, you know, how are we going to, how high are we going to go? How are we going to be able to get the forces where we need them to be? So, again, very straightforward text, multipolar world. Very chilling. All the realignments today—I know the other two gentlemen can speak to this. The global shifts today, and alliances, and so forth.
Gilbert Reid
I would like to pick up that, actually, and move to Jonathan, quickly, for a few remarks on what he thinks the attitude now of Canadians is, to the world and to the military. And are we ready to face the new realities, or are we asleep at the switch? And I’m not talking about our military, I’m talking about the rest of us. Jonathan.
Jonathan F. Vance
Yeah. I was interested in the General’s comments, because I certainly am glad to see that there is widespread public support for members of the military, in all sorts of respects. Obviously, there’s less support for political decisions that govern the military. And this has, has always been the case. I mean, Mackenzie King, when he was Prime Minister, was booed by the troops in Britain. King, to his, to his, to his great dissatisfaction, desperately wanted to be understood and accepted by the military, but he simply couldn’t understand them. He just didn’t understand what the military, or its people, were about. And he always felt that lack. And I think there is—we feel deeply that the sacrifices, the work that our individual fellow Canadians are doing, we’re less sanguine about the job that our politicians are doing, and making sure that our forces get to the right places, with the right things. And I think the recent history has suggested, to me anyways, that personally, we’re prepared in terms of, of human resources. I think, in terms of the kit they need, the support they need in, in more practical ways, we have less reason to be, to be sanguine.
The other thing I would suggest, though, is it’s hard to predict what societies will do in, in difficult situations. And just two quick stories that come to mind from the Second World War. In the late 1930’s, on university campuses around the Western world, were, were the hotbeds of, of anti-war movements, peace unions, peace pledges, student bodies, were voting 60, 70, 80% in favour of peace unions; a couple years later, the vast majority of these students were in uniform. So, what you see, if you look at the, the history, you see that the pacifist of 1938 is the infantry officer of 1940. When push comes to shove, they, their orientation changes, and, and they stand up and come forward.
Another one is, years ago, I was talking to a senior air marshal in the Royal Air Force, who had fought through the Second World War, he and his brother. And I was talking to him, this was, I think, in the late 80’s, early 90’s. I mentioned to him that, you know, kids these days, they don’t seem to have any sense of the world, they have no sense of obligation, they’re lazy, they’re, they’re self-absorbed; we just can’t count on them, like we had been able to count on them in the past. And he said, “Well, you know, that’s exactly what they said about us in the 1930’s. Kids in the 1930’s, they’re lazy, they’re shallow, they only care for their own comfort, they’re useless, we can’t trust them. And yet, when they were needed and the call went out, they came out in enormous numbers.”
So, I mean, I think we need to be really careful about, about giving ourselves a progress report right now, because we simply don’t know how people will react, when the time comes. We do have to make sure they have the tools to react properly. And again, I think that’s the area of concern, more than, than public support for members of the military, and the work they do.
Gilbert Reid
So, to a certain extent, there’s a split between the admiration for the military, and maybe a lack of admiration, from time to time, for our political leaders.
Jonathan F. Vance
And this has been the case for ages. I mean, it’s always, Remembrance Day’s the time when you recognize the people. It’s not the time when you debate whether the policy that, that took their lives was worthwhile. You give these people the dignity of having their participation, their sacrifice honoured, and you talk about the policies that put them there later.
Gilbert Reid
That’s a very good distinction. General, you are a professional. You can’t comment on politics, obviously, or you have to avoid politics, but you are an expert in readiness. And in the present world, we have to be ready for all sorts of things. How are we getting ready, and how can we get ready?
Cayle Oberwarth
Yeah. And so, you’re absolutely right, and we are getting ready every day. And to follow on to Professor Vance’s point—points, pardon me—our soldiers are seized with their responsibilities, and we’re tracking what’s happening, globally. This is something that, obviously, we take it all very seriously. We know that we can’t waste a day of training. It’s too late to start training—we’ve learned this in the past, and certainly, we learned it on our way to Afghanistan—you can’t start training on the aircraft, or when you land in theatre. That training has to, has to be done and dusted, before you get onto that. But it is important note as well. Like, we will fight with the army we have, not the army we want. And I think that’s an important consideration, as well. So, we are getting after readiness. We have a, a culture of readiness, and excellence in our CAF right now. We’re rebuilding ourselves, in a sense, post-COVID, which kind of slowed us down a little bit, and has had an impact on our recruiting. But we are rebounding.
And what I would offer is that, you know, when I was in Latvia two weeks ago now, I saw upwards of 2,000 soldiers there. They were all motivated, they were all driven, they were all getting after the business, and quite happy to be doing their duty forward. Also here, I was in Base Petawawa the last three days, around soldiers training, as well, and they’re also doing that. So, every day we’re focused on this. And our mantra here is: not having is not an excuse for not doing; we will do the best we can with what we have, where we were put. And that is indicative of, I think Canadians across history. And of course, I would defer to Professor Vance, and Ms. Kearns as well on that. But you can rest assured, we are getting ready, and we will be ready when the time comes.
Jonathan F. Vance
I would say that there’s a huge difference today, than the two World Wars. I mean, in 1914, Canada goes from a military of 3,000 men to, to half a million, over the course of a couple of years. Where we’re virtually defenceless, in 1939, but a couple of years, have the largest Air Force, Navy, one of the largest navies in the world. It’s different now. You can, you can build a Sopwith Camel in 1916, in a couple of weeks, you can churn out 100,000 Ross rifles in, in two months—they’re not very good, but they’ll do the trick. You can’t build a front-end military aircraft, with all the avionics, in 10 days. You can’t train your people on 10 days. So, at some point, we have to decide, we as a people have to decide, if we’re going to, if we’re going to continue to want to have a role internationally, or if we’re going to step back. And I’m not—whether there’s a right or wrong is irrelevant. This is a political decision that has to be made. We have to make a decision, because we can’t ask our people to go out into the world, improperly-kitted out. If we decide we want to step back, that’s fine. But we also have to understand there’ll be consequences to staying out of world issues. It may not even be possible.
So, these are, are tough decisions. And when the general talks about Canada standing behind its people, I want to make sure that the government stands behind them with more than simple platitudes. I think that’s the issue for me.
QUESTION & ANSWER
Gilbert Reid
That is essential. We have a few questions. So, we have to move now, I am told, by the time, producers, to question time—unless the general has something to say, I saw him, no, he’s happy. Good. In recent years, we have seen a growing emphasis on psychology, and post-trauma stress disorder, and such like things. Has the psychologizing of human experience impacted the attitude towards war and the military, and particularly, towards the question of military service? Who would like to take that on? Professor Vance, would you like to initiate with that?
Jonathan F. Vance
Yeah. It’s an interesting point. I mean, the—first of all, I’m speaking as someone who has never been in the military, or experienced combat, so take this with a grain of salt—but in some ways, the psychological response to war depends on what your peacetime life is like. So, in the First World War, because the workplace, because farming, because I mean, it was a, it was a it was a difficult life. The difference between what people were used to and what they were asked to do in the army was less. So, there’s a legendary sign that someone put on their farm that said, “You say war is hell, you should try homesteading.” For a lot of guys, they write home and say they’re actually getting three meals a day, which is in the army, which is great stuff for them.
Fast forward to now, where we live in a society of relative comforts, we have what we need, we have what we want, we have a, a social safety net, we have all sorts of supports. We are, generally speaking, well cared for, and live well. That’s a huge gap from being in combat. And so, to make that leap psychologically—and not just from, from a relatively affluent peacetime society to a war environment, but then to make it back, that leap back. This is, I think, where a lot of the issues are. It’s so, the stress of combat is so far from people’s normal experience, that it is difficult to negotiate. And I think that’s simply going to be magnified, going on.
Gilbert Reid
Any other? Would you like to come in on that, or we move to the next question? General, are you?
Cayle Oberwarth
So, what I would offer is, I think it’s hugely important for us to be prepared to explain to the soldiers why they’re doing what they’re doing. I feel as though some psychological injuries occur when the soldier has a difficult time rationalizing what it is he’s doing, with kind of his or her greater vision of what the mission is. And sometimes, that, that, the disconnection between the act and the reason, I think, certainly has, has been able to have more of an impact, I think, psychologically—not to dismiss anything Professor Vance said; I would tend to agree with what he’s offering, as well. I guess this just goes back to ensuring that when we do engage in these missions, unlike what it was in World War I and World War II, where there was a clear existential threat, an immediate existential threat to what was going on back home, here in these, these operations that we’ve been engaged in the last 20, 30 years, where it’s difficult sometimes to make that link back to the home front, I think that can have more of an impact on the psyche of some of our soldiers.
Gilbert Reid
There’s another question here, and that is about Remembrance Day. Does Remembrance Day really lead us to reflect on the nature of war, and what we should do about the world situation and war, and our military? Does it make us think, Remembrance Day, or not? Who wants to tackle that one?
Gertrude Kearns
If I could mention some remarkable pieces of work in the, in the contemporary art sphere, by both a Métis and an Indigenous artist from the Siksika Nation. The poet Suzanne Steele has written, with, with a composer, who did the score, Jeffrey Ryan, the most remarkable piece of music called “The Afghanistan Requiem for a Generation.” It’s, it’s based on a Catholic musical form. It’s absolutely searing. So, I think the power of art, and in the case of the contemporary but World War One referenced trench piece by Adrian Stimson, are works which absolutely, to use the phrase, can turn your bowels to water. They, I think art that is, on a profound level, is almost simulating the experience of—it can’t simulate the experience of war, really, but it comes as close as possible to doing that, I think. So, these are these are ways to commemorate, and pay homage to the sacrifices that have been made.
Gilbert Reid
I think that’s probably a good place to end, since we’ve reflected on the changing attitudes toward the reality of war, and whether Remembrance Day, and art and culture in general, do make us think about the big questions, which we as citizens and our military as citizen soldiers, have to think about. So, we’ll turn it now on to, I believe, our colleague.
Note of Appreciation and Concluding Remarks by Gordon McIvor
Thank you so much. Thank you to a wonderful panel. I’d like to extend our collective thanks to Gertrude Kearns, Brigadier General Oberwarth, and Jonathan F. Vance, and of course, to our moderator par excellence, Gilbert Reid. Thanks so much for sharing your profound insights today. Your thoughtful perspectives have certainly deepened our understanding of Canada’s evolving relationship with war, and with global affairs. We conclude this Remembrance Day event, and hope that we all leave with a deeper understanding of the immense sacrifices made by so many, and a renewed commitment to honour their legacy. Today’s discussion has reminded us that while history often echoes in the present, the way we interpret, remember, and act on those echoes is in fact what shapes our future. To those who serve and continue to serve, and to the families who bear the weight of their sacrifices, we offer our most profound gratitude. Thanks to each of you, for being a part of this meaningful commemoration. Let us never forget the courage, the loss, and hope that Remembrance Day symbolizes.
And this concludes today’s program, from the Empire Club Foundation. We certainly hope that we’ve provided you with some food for thought. And for any history buffs, please do visit empireclubfoundation.org; it will offer you a whole new view on the history of Canada. Ladies and gentlemen, this is Gordon McIvor signing off, with our favourite words: see you with the Empire Club. Thank you, and goodbye.
