November 11, 2023
Their Excellencies the Right Honourable Mary Simon, Governor General and Commander-in-Chief of Canada, and Mr. Whit Fraser, attended the National Remembrance Day Ceremony at the National War Memorial in Ottawa.
This year’s National Silver Cross Mother, Mrs. Gloria Hooper of Saint-Claude, Manitoba, was also in attendance. Mrs. Hooper’s son, Sapper Christopher Holopina, died in Bosnia on July 4, 1996. He perished in a vehicular accident while he and his comrades were on their way to save British soldiers stranded in a minefield. Sapper Holopina was the first Canadian to lose his life in Bosnia as part of Operation ALLIANCE. Mrs. Hooper placed a wreath at the base of the National War Memorial on behalf of all Canadian mothers who have lost a child in military service to Canada.
