If you’ve noticed that more adults are wearing commemorative poppies this year, you are not the only one. While Remembrance Day poppies often seem like a relic accessory from elementary school days, this year the Royal Canadian Legion Dominion distributed 19 million poppies, and are struggling to keep up with the demand for more.
Up one million poppies from last year when the Royal Canadian Legion Dominion raised $14.5 million to support veterans by helping them purchase walkers, wheelchairs and ramps, the spokesman for the Royal Canadian Legion has a couple of reasons why demand is up.
Bruce Poulin points to social awareness in events that have happened recently like the Parliament Hill Shootings in Ottawa that resulted in the terrorist-related deaths of Nathan Cirillo and Patrice Vincent on Oct. 22.
It is definitely not because the lapel poppies are notoriously easy to slip off, not to mention just as easy to accidentally stab yourself with while trying to fix and adjust onto your jacket. On this author’s part, going through a couple of poppies each Remembrance Day cycle is a given.
Written by: Irene Lo
