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magazine / nd07
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November/December 2007 issue |
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FEATURE
Meet me at the Legion
Royal Canadian Legion halls have been a part of Canadian community life
since 1926. Now they’ve thrown open their doors in a bid for survival.
But as photographer Tobi Asmoucha finds, they’ve lost none of their spirit.
photography by Tobi Asmoucha with story by Monique Roy-Sole
Name practically any town in Canada, and chances are,
it has at least one Royal Canadian Legion hall. More than
400,000 Canadians belong to the Legion’s 1,575 branches,
including 21 in the United States and a handful in Europe.
For more than 80 years, the Legion has served as local pub,
pool hall or community centre. It is a place to get married,
hold a banquet or card tournament or simply meet people.
top
The Legion has long been an exclusive fraternity of serving
and retired members of the Canadian military and
police forces and their families. But membership rules have
changed over time, and since 2006, anyone who is a
Canadian citizen or Commonwealth subject may join. It’s
a significant development meant to help rejuvenate and
ensure the survival of the dues-supported organization as the
number of wartime veterans wanes: the average age of
Second World War veterans is 82, and those who served in
the Korean War are in their late seventies.
The Royal Canadian Legion is losing about 12,000 members
a year, but the decline is “nothing new,” says Bob Butt,
director of communications at Dominion Command, the
Legion’s headquarters in Ottawa. “When the World War I
vets started to pass on, the World War II vets took over. Now
the World War II vets are passing on, and the Korean vets
are taking over.” Even so, the Legion has recently launched
a national television ad and door-to-door campaign to
recruit new members.
For the rest of this story, visit your local newsstand or go to our store to buy this issue.
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