“We thought we could work together, because honestly for everyone, preventing future wars should be a common element,” she said. “We continue to encourage our members to wear the red poppy as an outward sign of our respect and support for the brave men and women that serve, and have served, our country.” Are white poppies disrespectful?Īdamson explained that VOW Peace reached out to the Royal Canadian Legion to sort out the disagreement years ago, but it didn’t work out. “We would not authorize the wearing of the white poppy until it is approved to wear on uniforms by Canadian Forces,” the organization’s CEO, Jerry Rankin, said. John Ambulance said it won’t follow the lead of its British counterpart in allowing the white poppy. In a statement to Global News, the Canadian chapter of St. READ MORE: The dos and don’ts of wearing a Remembrance Day poppy That has prompted other groups to be hesitant in adopting the peace symbol.

One group you won’t see handing out white poppies is the Royal Canadian Legion. Peace Poppies’ website adds that Canadians who want to wear a white poppy can order them online or make their own. The white poppy emerged as a symbol of peace in 1933 when the Women’s Co-operative Guild in Britain was searching for a way to show their members were against war and for non-violence.Īdamson explained that Canadians may find one of her organization’s members - or other similar groups - handing out white poppies in public spaces in the coming days. READ MORE: Royal Canadian Legion’s Kelowna poppy fund helps with new medical equipment, JoeAnna’s House John McCrae of Guelph, Ont., wrote about the blood-red flowers that grew over battlefields in his poem, In Flanders Fields. While the history of the red poppy can be traced back to the Napoleonic Wars in the 19th century, it was first adopted as a symbol of remembrance in Canada in 1921, six years after Lt.-Col. Peace Poppies, a Vancouver-based group that advocates for Canadians to wear the white symbols, explains on its website that they also encompass the environmental devastation wars can cause, and “reject war as a tool for social change.”

Making a red remembrance poppy