What We Do

The Last Post Fund’s mission is to ensure that no eligible Veteran is denied a dignified funeral, burial and military gravestone due to insufficient funds at time of death. 
 

The organization’s primary mandate is to administer the Department of
Veterans Affairs Canada Funeral and Burial Program for all, eligible
Canadian and Allied Veterans. It also owns and manages the Last Post Fund,
National Field of Honour in Pointe Claire, Quebec. Additionally, The Fund has established an Unmarked Grave Program to provide military markers for Veterans’ graves that could have been neglected for years. 

The Last Post Fund receives its financial support from private donations and
Veterans Affairs Canada and is a national, non-profit organization with its
Head Office in Montreal and an adjunct facility in Toronto.

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How it All Started

He was cold, destitute and homeless and on that miserable, winter’s night in January, 1908, he lay slumped in a freezing, Montreal doorway. Mistaken by the two policemen who found him for an alcoholic who needed to sleep it off, Trooper James Daly was summarily shipped to the general hospital. It was only when hospital orderly Arthur Hair happened to find Boer War discharge papers in Daly’s jacket that anyone began to realize the truth. The blue envelope that contained them was his only possession, albeit a proud one, after serving King and country for more than 20 years.
 

Trooper Daly wasn’t drunk. He was in the depths of hypothermia and malnutrition and he died two days later at the age of 53. The circumstances of this brave soldier’s death were tragic enough.  Now, his unclaimed body was to be turned over to medical researchers, with no regard for a veteran soldier who had served the Empire well. Hair could not abide it, so he raised enough money from a group of friends to allow Trooper Daly to be buried with dignity in a cemetery on Mount Royal.
 

That encounter changed the course of Hair’s life. With great effort and the support of some of Montréal’s wealthier citizens, the “Last Post Imperial Navy and Military Contingency Fund’, as it was called back then, was established in April of 1909.  The Governor General became the fund’s honorary patron and in 1921 the organization was federally incorporated and expanded its operations to cover the entire country.  The first burial outside Quebec took place in Toronto in November 1922 and in 1923, Lieutenant-General Sir Arthur Currie, Canada’s hero of Passchendale and Vimy, became its President.
 

The most striking development in the 1930’s was the establishment of the Last Post Fund’s, Canadian Field of Honour, in a large, Quebec cemetery at Pointe Claire. During its inauguration, it was described as “one of the Empire’s most beautiful cemeteries” by a major newspaper of the day. It remains so today and it is the final resting place for more than 22,000 servicemen and women. This “Field of Honour” is open to all veterans of WWII, the Korean War and those who served Canada during peace time and on special duty. Incidentally, fewer than 60,000 veterans of WWII and the Korean War remain today, along with some 600,000 modern day veterans.
 

The Last Post Fund (LPF) is mandated to deliver the Veterans Affairs Canada funeral and burial program for eligible Canadian and allied veterans and its unmarked grave program provides military markers for forgotten heroes as they are discovered. For example, 13 sappers from the Royal Sappers and Miners of the British army, who died prior to 1831 during the construction of the Rideau canal, all lie at present in unmarked graves. They were originally buried with wooden markers near the Newboro lock, but on July 6 they will be recognized with a handsome, marker provided by the LPF. The stone will read, “Dedicated to the members of the 7th Company Royal Sappers and Miners laid to rest while serving the British empire during the construction of the Rideau canal 1829 -31.”

Overall, an estimated 3,000 unmarked graves remain in Canada alone and the LPF constantly seeks to rectify this unfortunate situation.  The LPF approved 1,174 applications for assistance during the last fiscal year, 445 of which were modern-day veterans, while 548 markers were approved. All in, 3,682 “lost” veterans have been identified and properly marked.

Of course, no one should be denied a respectful and decent funeral for lack of funds at the end of life. But when it comes to our veterans, we owe a special debt of gratitude to those who have never hesitated to put their lives on the line to defend us. Particularly since we live in the freedom they purchased for us with their loyal service to our country.  
When we support in death, those who have given so much to us in life, we honour the true meaning of those resounding words: “At the going down of the sun and in the morning, we will remember them”.

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By Col Gilbert Taylor (HCol ret’d), as it first appeared in the Toronto Sun.