Listen to daily commentary from program director Murray Wood
Murray Wood says the federal NDP seems to be heading for a political wipe out, as the left-leaning vote seems to be goin...
Like many live scheduled events in 2020, Saskatoon’s Remembrance Day ceremony will be going digital.
Brent Wignes, chair of the Saskatoon Remembrance Day Citizens Committee, said Monday the ceremony — usually held at SaskTel Centre — will not be happening in person come November.
“With the situation we’re in right now, we can’t have an en-masse Remembrance Day service at SaskTel Centre,” he said. “Normally we probably have about 600 to 900 people that actively participate in the parade, the wreath-laying (on) the main floor (and) up in the audience section, we have had anywhere between 8,000 to 10,000 people in the past.”
Through the Great Depression and the First and Second World Wars, the ceremony continued. But COVID-19 created additional barriers, linked to social distancing.
Wignes explained how long it has been since a Remembrance Day ceremony in Saskatoon didn’t physically happen.
“It probably goes way back to the ’20s and ’30s when they actually started having Remembrance Day service here … It used to be held right in the middle of downtown quite often in the ’30s, ’40s and ’50s,” he said. “We’ve been at SaskTel Centre ever since they opened up (in 1988).”
Instead, the digital aspect does create another potential positive outcome — it may mean more eyes watching than ever before, according to Wignes.
“I think it may reach a little broader audience out there,” he said. “We cannot have a physical parade (and) we cannot have the physical mass wreath-laying that we usually have. We’re going to stick with, mostly, the act of remembrance itself.”
Wignes said all of the event will be pre-recorded before being live-streamed on Nov. 11.
