Sunday Shopping

7 June 1992

Millennials and post-Millennials may be astounded to learn that as little as a generation ago shopping on Sundays was not permitted except under very limited circumstances. Service stations could remain open as could corner stores, and shops in designated tourist zones, such as Ottawa’s Byward Market. However, shopping malls and grocery stores were required to be closed. And people didn’t even dream of buying alcohol on a Sunday. The reason was the Lord’s Day Act which forbade shopping on Sunday, a.k.a. the Sabbath.

The Codex Theodosianus, which was compiled by the Roman Emperor Theodosius II, was a collection of ancient Roman laws, Wikipedia.

A prohibition on Sunday business has a very old pedigree, dating back to 321 A.D. to the reign of the Roman Emperor Constantine. All city residents and tradesmen were required to rest on Sunday. There were exceptions where a cessation of work was not practical such as in agriculture. The interesting thing is that this first Sunday shopping ban occurred during pagan times. In 386 A.D., shortly after Christianity had become the state religion of the Roman Empire, the first reference to the “Lord’s Day” appears. Contained in the Codex Theodosianus, the law stated that “on the day of the sun, properly called the Lord’s Day, by our ancestors, let there be a cessation of lawsuits, business and indictments.”

Similar laws were promulgated in England during Saxon times and after the Norman Conquest in 1066. There were, however, slippages in practices during the fourteenth and fifteen centuries when Sunday increasingly became a market day and taverns remained open, much to the displeasure of the Church. In 1448, the Sunday Fairs Act was passed banning all fairs and markets on a Sunday, except for necessary “victuals” and four harvest Sundays. In the seventeenth century, amidst growing Puritanism, three more Sunday Observance Acts were passed tightening restrictions, including a ban on recreation and travelling. Church service attendance was, of course, mandatory.

After the conquest of Quebec in 1763, the four English Sunday observance laws applied to what was to become Canada, as did the 1780 English Act for Preventing Certain Abuses and Profanations on the Lord’s Day, called Sunday. In 1845, under pressure from Methodist and Presbyterian churches, the legislature of the Province of Canada passed its own strict Sunday observance act for Upper Canada called “An Act to Prevent the Profanation of the Lord’s Day, commonly called Sunday. Prohibited were all “worldly labour, business or work” as well as tippling, public political meetings, skittles, ball, football, racket, or any other noisy game, gambling, foot races, horse races, swimming, fishing, hunting, or shooting. In other words, anything that was fun was forbidden. There were exceptions. If you were attacked by a wolf, you could shoot it. Also, conveying travellers and Her Majesty’s mail, selling drugs or medicine, works of charity and “other such works of necessity” were permitted.

The rationale for this law was to ensure that everybody spent Sunday in prayer or doing godly things rather than anything that might be considered worldly or pleasurable. Note for the religiously strict even laughing was frowned upon as there is no reference to Christ laughing in the Bible.

The Bytown City Council passed its own Sunday By-law in 1847 to prevent “nuisances.” Such nuisances including anybody who kept open a grocery or eating house on the Sabbath-day within the limits of the Town. The penalty was up to 25 shillings.

For the most part, the Sunday Observance Acts were effective in shutting down virtually all business. The one major exception—the transmission of the mail on Sundays—was very controversial. Church groups protested.  In 1850, Bytown inhabitants also complained, sending a memorial to the Governor General noting “with deep regret the extensive and legalized system of Sabbath desecration caused by the transmission of Her Majesty’s mail, the opening of Post Offices, and the delivery of letter and papers on the Lord’s Day.” The government resisted such entreaties, and the mail continued.

^{Article that appeared in the Ottawa Daily Citizen, 12 June 1876}

Of course, not everybody obeyed the law. Certain industries in remote areas, such as forestry and mining, were serial offenders. As well, those in domestic service didn’t seem to qualify for a day of rest.

Many complained about boys playing ball or cricket in Ottawa’s streets and on vacant lots on Sundays. Some took umbrage at kids fishing on the Sabbath in the Rideau River at Hogsback, especially when they openly carried fishing poles and fish past the residences of “respectable” people. “Unless they drop their evil practices they will be summarily brought to justice.”  On one occasion, five “delinquents” were fined $1 each plus court costs for fishing and bathing on the Sabbath.

In 1866-67, there was an extensive debate in the Daily Citizen on whether skating on a Sunday was legal.  Writing under the pseudonym “Christian Liberty,” one citizen maintained that “there was no statute, Imperial or Provincial, which made Sunday skating illegal. “Ruris” wrote that “whether or not there be such a law…, [he] was not prepared to skate” and that “there is an enactment of the statute of the Book of the King of kings which says remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.” “Anti-Cant” called Sabbatarians (people who believe in a literal reading of the of the fourth Commandment such as Ruris), “a set of humbugs and hypocrites.” He added “You big boys and little, who, after close confinement for six days, want to stretch your legs and enjoy the fresh, invigorating air of Heaven on the seventh, slide and skate away, and get roses in your cheeks, and don’t be afraid of the police.”

The definition of a “work of necessity” was also unclear. In July 1877, Chief Langrell of the Ottawa Police instructed his men to tell all milk dealers that they must observe the Sabbath or face the consequences—a fine of up to $50. This injunction set off a wave of protest. Ottawa police were called the “milk inquisition” and that the Chief was “elevating public morality through the medium of the milk pail.” After it was pointed out that milk, especially at the height of an Ottawa summer, was a perishable product and that children needed to drink fresh not sour milk, Chief Langrell relented. However, a few years later, five barbers were less successful. They received summons for shaving customers on the Sabbath. One irate citizen wrote that “it certainly seems ridiculous that bathing or shaving or any other toilet operation should be a crime on Sunday.”

^{Sunday Laws in Ontario, early 20th century, Source: Seventh Day Adventist Church}

In 1888, Sabbatarian churches formed the Ontario Lord’s Day Alliance to fight an emerging new unholy threat to Sabbath observance—the Sunday operation of streetcars in Ontario. After legal challenges, the Ontario Court of Appeal ruled that the Lord’s Day Act did not apply to streetcars, railways, telegraph, canal, and steamship companies that operated under a Dominion charter. Appealed again, the case went to the Privy Council in London. In a shocking move to Sabbatarians, the Privy Council ruled in 1903 that the entire Ontario Lord’s Day Act was ultra vires, since criminal law was a Dominion responsibility under the British North America Act.

The Dominion Lord’s Day Alliance fought back with its members launching a campaign to pressure the Laurier Government to pass a federal Lord’s Day Act. In 1905 two members of the Alliance came to Ottawa to address church groups. At Erksine Presbyterian Church, they argued that “our national well-being required that the sacredness of the Sabbath be preserved.”

In 1906, the Federal Government complied, passing the Act over the opposition of other religious groups, including Seventh-Day Adventists and Jews, who worship on Saturdays. Sunday business, including sports, was sharply circumscribed. There was, however, a list of exclusions, including work of domestic servants and health care workers, bakers after 4pm, fishermen after 6pm and newspaper operators after 8pm. Telegraphs, telephones, the postal service, electrical works, animal husbandry, and certain industrial repairs were also permitted. Maple syrup production was also deemed a work of necessity.

During the Second World War, Sunday restrictions eased slightly. Cinemas in some cities opened on Sundays to provide entertainment for the troops. However, war didn’t stop the Lord’s Day Alliance from trying to stop market gardeners from tending their gardens on Sundays in 1943.

In 1950, Ontario passed the Lord’s Day (Ontario) Act, which complemented the federal law but permitted municipalities to decide for themselves whether to permit sporting events on Sunday afternoons. Here in Ottawa, it took three public votes on the issue before the Ottawa Rough Riders were finally allowed to play football on Sundays starting in 1965.

To reinforce the provincial Lord’s Day Act, the Ontario government passed the Retail Business Holidays Act in 1975 which prohibited most retail stores from operating on a Sunday. The cited reason was to give workers a common day of pause. Now there was two Ontario laws banning Sunday shopping, one religious and one ostensibly secular.

But by the 1980s, popular opinion was beginning to shift in favour of Sunday shopping. In 1985, the Supreme Court ruled in R. v. Big M Drug Mart Ltd that the Lord’s Day Act was unconstitutional under section 2b (freedom of thought, belief opinion and expression) of Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Expecting the Retail Business Holiday Act to also be found unconstitutional, stores in Ontario began to open illegally on Sundays. However, the Supreme Court surprised everybody by ruling in the government’s favour. Stores again closed their doors.

Pressure for change shifted to the political front. Libertarian groups, such as the Freedom Party of Ontario, and the Committee for Fair Shopping, a coalition of grocery store chains, lobbied for freedom of choice. Border communities also lobbied for change as U.S. shops were open on Sundays and attracted Canadian customers. In 1989, the Ontario government dumped the issue into the laps of municipalities by introducing the “local option,” where municipalities could decide whether stores in their jurisdictions could open on Sundays. This satisfied nobody.

_{^{Government Announcement regarding Sunday Shopping, Ottawa Citizen, 8 June 1992.}}

In June 1990, an Ontario High Court judge ruled the Retail Business Holiday Act unconstitutional. Stores in Ontario, including Ottawa, reopened on Sundays. However, eight months later, the Court of Appeal overturned the decision, much to the delight of organized labour and church groups. Subsequently, three Nepean stores, Fresh Fruit Co on Robertson Road, Top Banana on Merivale Road, and Leather Liquidation also on Merivale Road, were charged with illegally doing business on a Sunday.

But the public had a taste of the forbidden fruit and found it delicious. Public opinion polls began to strongly favour Sunday shopping. At the beginning of June 1992, the NDP government of Bob Rae, which had previously insisted on a “common pause day to strengthen the family and community life while protecting small businesses and the rights of workers,” caved under the pressure. Over the protests of labour unions and the complaints of a psychologist who argued that Sunday shopping would do serious psychological harm to families, the Rae government allowed unfettered Sunday shopping.   A few days later, on Sunday, 7 June 1992, malls and grocery stores opened for business across the province, including Ottawa. A new era in retailing had begun.

On that first day of Sunday shopping in Ottawa, “mom and pop” stores apparently took a beating as shoppers flocked to the malls. Small independent fruit stores as well as Byward Market shops also experienced a fall in revenues. The iconic Boushey’s Fruit Market on Elgin Street posted a 25 per cent decline in sales, and worried that it might have to lay off staff.

In the event, a new retail equilibrium emerged over time. Contrary to the fears of some, a 2005 study concluded that stores, on average, did not increase the hours of work of existing employees but instead hired a significant number of new employees to accommodate Sunday shopping. Also contrary to some church fears, Sunday shopping did not lead to social Armageddon, though church attendance continued its decline. As for Boushey’s, the store survived the introduction of Sunday shopping and lasted another 24 years. It closed its doors in 2016. Financial reasons were not a factor.

Sources:

CBC. 2016. “Boushey’s Fruit Market on Elgin Street closing after 70 years in business,” 31 May, https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/bousheys-grocery-elgin-closing-1.3608630.

Canada, Province of, 1845. An Act to prevent the Profanation of the Lord’s Day, commonly called Sunday, in Upper Canada, https://bnald.lib.unb.ca/sites/default/files/UnC.1845.ch%2045.pdf.

Canada, 1906, The Lord’s Day Act, http://www.wikiwand.com/en/History_of_Seventh-day_Adventist_freedom_of_religion_in_Canada.

Crocker, Rev. Chris W. 2013. A Worthy Cause: The Lord’s Day in the Baptist Press Amongst Nineteenth-Century, Upper Canadian Regular Baptists,  McMaster Divinity College, https://macsphere.mcmaster.ca/bitstream/11375/16873/1/Crocker%20Chris.pdf.

Freedom Party of Ontario, 2012. Sunday Shopping in Ontario: The 85 year Ban and its Defeat, http://www.freedomparty.on.ca/sundayshopping/.

Garner, Hugh 1956. “How Canada’s ‘blue-law’ busybodies boss you on Sunday,” Liberty, November, http://www.freedomparty.on.ca/sundayshopping/1955-11-xx.Liberty-Magazine.blue-law-busibodies.pdf.

Ontario Law Reform Committee, 1970. Report on Sunday Observance Legislation, Department of Justice, http://www.ontla.on.ca/library/repository/mon/27010/22192.pdf.

Ottawa Citizen, 1861. “Fall Assizes,” 25 October.

—————–, 1869. “Vigilant,” 13 July.

——————, 1865. “Sabbath Breakers,” 20 June.

——————, 1876. “Disgraceful,” 12 June.

——————, 1877. “Sabbath Desecration,” 9 July.

——————, 1877. “No title,” 24 July.

——————, 1877. “Not title,” 27 July.

——————, 1903. “Lord’s Day Act,” 15 July.

——————. 1992. “Its Been Brutal,” 8 June.

——————, 1883. “Sunday Shaving,” 3 July.

——————, 1990. “Attention, Sunday Shoppers,” 6 July.

——————, 1991. “NDP can’t keep its promises,” 12 February.

——————, 1991. “Sunday Shopping,” 21 March.

——————, 1991.  “Sunday Shopping,” 30 June.

——————, 1991. “Bill Allows 4 Weeks of Sunday Shopping,” 26 November.

——————. 1992. “Bedeviled!” 30 May.

——————. 1992. “Stores open Sunday,” 4 June.

——————, 1992. “It’s Been Brutal,” 8 June.

Ottawa Evening Journal, 1905. “Preserving The Sabbath,” 8 May.

Packet, 1847. “By-Law to prevent Nuisances,” 4 December.

——–, 1850 “Sabbath Desecration,” 26 January.

——–, 1850. “Memorial of the Inhabitants of Bytown and its Vicinity,” 20 July.

Skuterud, Mikal, 2005. “The impact of Sunday shopping one employment and hours of work in the retail industry: evidence from Canada,” European Economic Review, Vol. 49, Issue 8, November, pp. 1953-1978.

Wikiwand, 2019. History of Seventh-Day Adventist freedom of religion in Canada, http://www.wikiwand.com/en/History_of_Seventh-day_Adventist_freedom_of_religion_in_Canada.

The Governor General’s Foot Guards

7 June 1872

For more than fifty years, a highlight of every summer visitor’s trip to Ottawa has been the “Changing of the Guard” ceremony conducted daily on Parliament Hill from June to August by young reservists drawn largely from the Governor General Foot Guards. Starting at 10am sharp, rain or shine, the “new” guard marches from the Cartier Square Drill Hall to Parliament Hill to relieve the “old” guard drawn up on the east lawn in front of the Parliament buildings. Dressed in scarlet uniforms and bearskin hats and accompanied by the regimental band with bagpipers and drummers, the Changing of the Guard presents a colourful spectacle of military pomp and ceremony.

The Foot Guards have a long and impressive pedigree, dating back to the early days of Confederation. During the 1860s, there wasn’t in truth much of a regular military presence in British North America. As early as 1855, Britain began withdrawing its forces, keeping only naval bases at Halifax and Esquimalt on the east and west coasts, respectively. This left the defence of Canada and the other British colonies in North America to local militia consisting of ill-equipped, civilian volunteers who trained for only a few weeks each year.

This was not a good time for Canada to be largely defenceless. Many in the United States viewed the eventual takeover of all of North America as that country’s “manifest destiny.” With British sympathies laying mostly with the Confederacy during the U.S. Civil War (1861-65), many north of the border feared that the U.S. government might try to annex British North America once the war with the South was won. Canadian authorities also had to deal with the Fenians who raided across the Canadian-American border between 1866 and 1871 in a bizarre attempt to force Britain to leave Ireland. Many of these Fenian raiders were battle-hardened, former U.S. soldiers who learned their trade in the Civil War. Against this backdrop, in 1866, the year prior to Confederation, the government of John A. Macdonald and Narcisse-Fortunat Belleau called for 10,000 volunteers to serve for three weeks each year for a period of three years to help defend Canada.

Here in Ottawa, the Civic Service Rifle Corps, made up of volunteer bureaucrats, was already embodied. The Corps had originally been founded in 1861 in Quebec City after the “Trent Affair,” which had brought Britain and the United States to the brink of war, but had moved to Ottawa when government workers were transferred to the new Canadian capital when the Parliament buildings were completed. The Corps was reconstituted as the Civil Service Rifle Regiment in 1866 but was disbanded in 1868.  The two companies that made up the Rifles were later to become the nucleus of the Governor General’s Foot Guards.

^{Lieutenant-Colonel Thomas Ross and Members of the Governor General’s Foot Guards, circa 1875, Library and Archives Canada, Mikan No. 3194356.}

The father of the Foot Guards was Major Thomas Ross. Ross was the senior civil servant in the Department of Finance working under Sir Francis Hincks, the Minister of Finance. He had started his civil service career in 1839 as a clerk in the Secretary’s Office of Lower Canada. Following the Act of Union in 1841, he became a clerk in the Secretary’s Office of the new Province of Canada. He later become the chief clerk in the Department of the Dominion Secretary of State after Confederation, before moving to the Department of Finance. Ross came from a military family; his grandfather had been one of General Wolfe’s officers in the war with the French one hundred years earlier. He also had considerable personal military experience.  He joined the Civil Service Rifle Corps as a private when it was founded in 1861. He later became an officer in the Ottawa Brigade Garrison Artillery, a provisional brigade established in 1861 composed of four, later seven, artillery batteries in the region. He subsequently commanded the brigade as its Major. Fond of military music, Ross was also President of the brigade’s band committee. He saw active service during the Fenian raids.

In early June 1872, Major Ross sent a memorandum to Sir Georges-Étienne Cartier, the Minister of Militia and Defence, proposing the establishment of an Ottawa-based volunteer force to be called The Governor General’s Foot Guards. Ross suggested that the Guard would be placed at the disposal of the government for state occasions. Ross stressed that the new formation would provide military music at Government House and elsewhere, filling a void left by the absence of Imperial troops. He also recommended that the uniform of the Foot Guards be similar to that worn by Queen Victoria’s Household troops.

Cartier’s response was swift. On 7 June 1872, only two days after he had received Ross’s memorandum, he authorised the Major to raise a battalion of foot guards with its headquarters in Ottawa to be designated “1st Battalion Governor General’s Foot Guards (General Order 16). Cartier also ordered the guards to have the same precedence and status in Canada’s active militia as Queen Victoria’s Foot Guards had in the Imperial army. Ross was promoted to lieutenant-colonel and placed in command of the new battalion.

Within days of the creation of the battalion, which incorporated the former 1^st and 2^nd companies of the Civil Service Rifles, the Guards consisted of 80 men and three officers in addition to Colonel Ross—Major White, Lieutenant Walsh, and Lieutenant G. Patrick. The battalion also has a 35-member band under the direction of John C. Bonner. Their first official function was the provision of a guard of honour for the Earl of Dufferin who arrived in Ottawa on 25 June 1872 to take up his position as Canada’s governor general. With their scarlet guards’ uniforms still on order, the men paraded in their old Rifles’ uniforms.

By September 1872, the battalion consisted of six companies with supporting staff. Under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Ross, the unit was divided into two half battalions, each commanded by a major, with the senior major in charge of the right half, and the junior major in charge of the left. The half battalions were subdivided into companies, each with their own captain, lieutenant, and ensign; the lieutenant commanded the right half of a company, and the ensign, the left.

Initially without an official home, the battalion practised on the lawn in front of the Parliament buildings in the evenings starting at 6pm. Band practice took place in the East Block, one evening every week. Officer meetings were held in Colonel Ross’s office in the Department of Finance in the East Block. Later, the Guards began to drill in an old wooden warehouse located on the east side of the Rideau Canal close to Rideau Street. Subsequently, the unit moved to another warehouse on what today is called Besserer Street.

In November 1879, the Foot Guards settled into the Cartier Square Drill Hall, built to house the battalion and which remains the Guards’ home today. In 1881, the 43^rd Ottawa and Carleton Battalion of Rifles, now known as the Cameron Highlanders of Ottawa (Duke of Edinburgh’s Own), joined them. The Drill Hall, located on the west side of the Rideau Canal at Laurier Avenue (originally Maria Street), was constructed for $18, 879, a considerable sum in those days. Its architect was Thomas Seaton, the Chief Architect of the Department of Public Works. The original, one-story building initially had an earthen floor. Wooden flooring was installed in 1881, and a second floor added during the 1890s. The Guards and the Highlanders drilled both inside this building as well as in the field outside, now partially occupied by the Ottawa City Hall.

^{Regimental Badge of the Governor General’s Foot Guards}

The uniform of the Governor General’s Foot Guards was modelled on that of the Coldstream Guards, one of the regiments that make up the Household Division—the personal force of the British monarch. There are some minor differences, in particular the badge. The regimental badge of the Coldstream Guards is a star with the red-cross emblem and motto — Honi soit qui mal y pense — of the Order of the Garter at its centre. The badge of the Governor General’s Foot Guards is a six-pointed star representing the six provinces of Canada in 1872. In its centre is a blue cross, surrounded by the Guards’ Latin motto Civitas et princeps cura nostra, loosely translated as “Our country and ruler are our concern.” The other minor difference is that the Governor General’s Foot Guards wear a scarlet plume on the left side of their bearskin hats instead of on the right side as done by the Coldstream Guards. During the early years of the Battalion, the Guards’ uniform was, however, not completely standardized. Their “bearskins” were in reality Fusiliers’ busbies made of racoon, though apparently few outsiders could tell the difference. Slight differences in dress also emerged owing to officers using their own tailors to make their uniforms. In addition, as soldiers had to provide their own boots, there were footwear differences. Uniformity of uniform was finally achieved in 1889 following a dress review.

If Major Ross can be considered the “father” of the Governor General’s Foot Guards, Lord Dufferin has been called the battalion’s “godfather.” After his arrival in Ottawa, he took an active interest in the unit. On the Queen’s birthday on 24 May 1874, Dufferin presented the Foot Guards with their first Colours, or regimental flag.

Since its creation in 1872, the Foot Guards have seen action on numerous occasions, earning 34 battle honours, of which 22 are displayed on the Colours. Three guardsmen have won the Victoria Cross, Canada’s highest military honour. The Guard was represented on Canada’s first international mission, when Captain Telmont Aumond and four men participated in the Nile Campaign (1884-5), the failed British attempt to rescue General Gordon who was besieged by Islamist forces at Khartoum, Sudan. The Regiment took its first casualties at the Battle of Cut Hill in 1885 during the North-West Rebellion in Manitoba when privates John Rogers and William Osgoode lost their lives. A statue honouring them currently stands outside of the Cartier Square Drill Hall. Six officers and 85 other ranks participated in the Boer War (1899-1900). Two guardsmen died and two were injured.

During World War I, 242 officers and 5,084 other ranks saw active service the famous “Iron Second” (2^nd Battalion, Canadian Expeditionary Force) and the 77^th Battalion. Present in many of the great battles of the war including Passchendaele, Amiens, and the Somme, the Governor General’s Foot Guards were awarded twenty-one battle honours. Of those that served, 1,279 were injured or lost their lives. The Guards were mobilized again in May 1940 for duty at home and abroad during World War II. In 1942, the unit was converted into an armoured regiment called the 21^st Canadian Armoured Regiment (G.G.F.G.). Fighting in France and Germany, the Guards were awarded another eleven battle honours, seeing action in such places as Falaise, the Rhineland and the Scheldt. Of the 2,339 men and 165 officers who saw action, 515 were killed and 178 wounded.

After World War II, the regiment resumed its role as a part-time, infantry reserve unit based in Ottawa with special ceremonial duties on Parliament Hill and at Rideau Hall, the home of the Governor General. But the men and women of the Guards are not toy soldiers just putting on a show for tourists. They are ready for duty both home and abroad should they received the call. Living up to their motto, the Guards were mobilized after the devastating ice storm in Eastern Canada in 1998 to support Operation Recuperation. In recent years, members of the Guards have also serviced in Cyprus, Somalia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Sierra Leone, Haiti, Sudan, and Afghanistan.

Sources:

Camerons, Ottawa’s Regiment, History, http://camerons.ca/history/.

Canada, Government of, 2014. Canadian Army: A Conversation with Cartier Square Drill Hall’ amateur historian, 6 November, http://www.army-armee.forces.gc.ca/en/news-publications/national-news-details-no-menu.page?doc=a-conversation-with-cartier-square-drill-hall-s-amateur-historian/i251ryc4.

————————–, 2016. Governor General’s Foot Guards, http://www.army-armee.forces.gc.ca/en/ggfg/index.page.

————————–, 2016. “Governor General’s Foot Guards,” National Defence and the Canadian Forces, Volume 3, Part 2: Infantry Regiments, http://www.cmp-cpm.forces.gc.ca/dhh-dhp/his/ol-lo/vol-tom-3/par2/ggfg-eng.asp.

Governor General’s Foot Guards, Regimental Museum, 2016.  http://footguards.ca/.

Foster, Capt. M. et al. 1999. Steady the Buttons : Two by Two, Governor General’s Foot Guards, 125^th Anniversary, 1872-1997, Governor General’s Foot Guards Foundation.

Historica Canada, 2014. The Governor General’s Foot Guards Band, http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/the-governor-generals-foot-guards-band-emc/.

Loyal Edmonton Regiment Military Museum (The), 2016. Beginnings, http://www.lermuseum.org/en/canadas-military-history/beginnings/.

Ottawa Journal (The), 1947. “GGFG, Veteran of Five Wars To Mark 75^th Anniversary,” 22 May.

————————–, 1972. “Ottawa’s GGFG 100^th birthday celebration calls for something special,”

Images:

Lieutenant-Colonel Thomas Ross and Members of the Governor General’s Foot Guards, circa 1875, Library and Archives Canada, MIKAN No. 3194356.

Badge of the Governor General’s Foot Guards, National Defence and the Canadian Forces, http://www.cmp-cpm.forces.gc.ca/dhh-dhp/his/ol-lo/vol-tom-3/par2/ggfg-eng.asp