For two minutes on Thursday, scores of Torontonians fell silent to remember and show respect for the sacrifices of soldiers in past and current conflicts.
The clock at Old City Hall tolled eleven times at 11 a.m. on Remembrance Day, which originally marks the time the guns fell silent in Europe in 1918 as the First World War ended, a four-year conflict that left more than 60,000 Canadian soldiers dead.
Outgoing Mayor David Miller referred to the Great War in his remarks.
"… Being here on Nov. 11 also serves as a painful and tragic reminder that despite the hope that the carnage of World War I would make it the war to end all wars, we are still a long way from achieving a lasting peace that was perhaps naively envisioned but that we nevertheless still desire," he said.
Canada lost John Babcock, its last living link to the First World War, in February.
In the Second World War that began in 1939 and would last for six years, more than 45,000 Canadians would die on battlefields ranging from Hong Kong to Italy to the beaches of Normandy, France.
Jim Parks, 86, took part in the June 6, 1944 invasion of France, wading ashore at Juno beach.
"Even when I go to talk at schools for a week before, I ask myself, 'Why am I doing this?' Because it resurrects a lot of the sad memories," he said.
Fellow World War Two vet John Bennett added: "The sounds, the noise, your friends dying around you -- it's very important that people should know that side."
Mark Dewdney, who lost his grandfather to the Second World War, hoped his own young son would understand the solemnity of Remembrance Day some day.
Second World War veterans are dying at a rate of about 500 to 600 per week.
Queen's Park
At the provincial legislature, veteran Bill Smith said the day wasn't about him, but about those who died in service.
Premier Dalton McGuinty was among the dignitaries and hundreds of others who gathered at Queen's Park.
"We will gather her at this memorial, ever year, always," he said. "And we will remember -- always."
The Ontario Veteran's Memorial at Queen's Park is a 30-metre-long granite structure etched with scenes from battle.
For Maj.-Gen. (ret.) Richard Rohmer, one image was very personal: "That is my Mustang (fighter aircraft) over the beachhead on D-Day."
Other official services were held at civic centres in East York, Etobicoke, North York, Scarborough and York.
The city's transit system joined the ceremony as subways paused in stations, buses stopped on roadways and streetcars halted for two minutes of silence.
The day of remembrance began with a sunrise ceremony at Prospect Cemetery, running along Caledonia Road between Eglinton and St. Clair Avenues, the home of many who died in the First World War and the Second World War.
In Ottawa, Gov. Gen David Johnson presided over his first Remembrance Day ceremony at the National War Memorial, where an estimated 30,000 had gathered with poppies and wreaths.
Memorial Silver Cross Mother, Mabel Girouard of Bathurst, New Brunswick had the honour of laying a wreath on behalf of all the parents who have lost children serving in Canada's military. Her son Robert died in Afghanistan in 2006.
Meanwhile in Afghanistan, more than 200 people gathered at the cenotaph at Kandahar Airfield, where flags were lowered to half-mast in honour of the 152 Canadian soldiers killed in Afghanistan since 2002.
With reports from CTV Toronto's John Musselman and Paul Bliss
