ADAMS: Poppies are for remembrance, not racist purity tests

As plastic poppies blossom on coat lapels across the country for Remembrance Day, a familiar and deeply disrespectful ritual plays out online. Far-right agitators and internet culture-warriors have spent the last decade trying to weaponize Canadian soldiers (or rather, the pristine symbol of what they represent) as an excuse to peddle racism, homophobia, transphobia, and general bigotry.

It is shameful, and frankly, it has gotten completely out of hand.

The brave women and men who shipped out to Europe in the 1940s to face German machine guns did not die so a bunch of terminally online trolls could use their sacrifice as a purity test against immigrants and the LGBTQ community. Immigrants, LGBTQ people, and Indigenous peoples served, too—even when they were denied the basic rights and respect they heroically fought to defend for other Canadians.

These self-appointed guardians of tradition love to scream about who is or isn't wearing a poppy on transit or at the office. Yet, if you walk down any street in Toronto, you'll spot folks of every background imaginable who aren't wearing one—yet the radical right only seems to care when it gives them a convenient cover to act like bigoted assholes.

A single UK enamel pin in the late-2010's sparked a media frenzy claiming that LGBTQ activists were forcing kids to wear pride versions of the symbol, complete with viral stories about suspended students that collapsed under the slightest scrutiny. The Legion never endorsed it and no such campaign was actually proven to have existed—yet the radical right still treated it like an existential threat to the fallen.

Or just scroll any November comment section on Facebook or X: anonymous accounts paraphrasing Don Cherry and demanding to know why the south asian guy on the sidewalk isn't wearing one, or declaring that immigrants and “the alphabet people” (but more so immigrants) have no right to the poppy because their grandparents didn't storm Juno Beach. Same ritual every year, same small-minded purity test, same ahistorical disrespect for the actual diverse Canadians who wore the uniform.

If someone genuinely believes that our society doesn't do enough to care for veterans, that is a legitimate, defensible argument. If you dislike this reality, walk into your local Royal Canadian Legion branch, roll up your sleeves, and volunteer. Write to your Member of Parliament and ask why Canada doesn't officially designate May as Military Appreciation Month.

Or, most importantly, look at the reality of modern service.

There are Canadians right now standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Ukrainians fighting off a brutal Russian invasion, embodying the same defence of freedom that your grandparents displayed in the 20th century.

Canadians who died in Ukraine's military defending democracy and freedom for people abroad deserve to be honoured and supported by our government, and you can advocate for all of those things without the gay-bashing or racism, you can care for veterans without turning November into an exercise in exclusion.

To those who think this kind of toxic activism is acceptable, do you really think that Canadian service people fought so far-right malcontents could turn national remembrance into a club to beat over the heads of their fellow Canadians? I think anyone who actually wore that uniform and buried their friends would be utterly sickened to see their memory hijacked by small-minded bullies looking for an excuse to spew hate online.

True remembrance is about respecting the actual human beings who served our great country—a diverse cross-section of Canadians of every race, background, and walk of life. Leave the troops out of your culture wars. They deserve better, and so does everyone else.

This piece was written by an individual contributor and reflects the editorial position of The Provincial Times. Read our Content Policy here.