I found a great site called Officer Down, a memorial site for those lost in the Line Of Duty in both Canada and the US. I was very impressed as it gave histories, bios and even gave a great little statistics page.
So across the US, there have been 21 lost since the beginning of this year but only 8 by gunfire. Still too many, to be sure, but certainly not anywhere near the 4 in one day, every day. Again, with a population tenfold that of Canada, it's still apples and oranges.
Apparently, our nation is in mourning. So it should be. However, I drove around the Lower Mainland yesterday and you certainly wouldn't know it. As I mentioned the other day, the flags are not dropped at the majority of places. Other than government buildings, police detachments, EMS and fire departments, I saw very very few. Oddly, Save-On-Foods grocery store did, but Canadian Tire did not. I took a close look at flags at places such as Canadian Superstore and McDonalds and they do have the ability to lower their flag, as opposed to those that have flags that are stagnant at the top.
While I don't have a flag to drop, I have put up the official memorial ribbon on my sidebar, which will remain there until the services are performed. You can check out their site here. I figure if I can be the only Canadian I've seen with a yellow ribbon magnet on the back of my car, it's the least I can do.
So what are other Canadians seeing for memorials, half-mast flags? Is this apathy across the country?
