On Feb 12, 2020, Minister MacAulay visited the cenotaph at the George Derby Centre —a long-term care facility in Burnaby, British Columbia specializing in veteran's care. The original George Derby Centre was built over 50 years ago as a rehabilitation centre for young disabled veterans returning from the war with the goal of promoting their return to community living. In May 1988 the present centre opened as a 300 bed licensed intermediate care facility.
The Centre is named in honour of the late Sergeant George Cleveland Derby O.B.E. In 1914, Mr. Derby was employed in Vancouver as a Broker. On September 18, 1915, at the outbreak of World War I, he enlisted as a private in the 72nd Battalion, Seaforth Highlanders, Canadian Expeditionary Force. He was stationed in England from April to August 1916 and was then sent to France. In November 1916 he suffered a concussion that seriously impaired his hearing. In April 1917, during the preliminary fighting at Vimy, an exploding shell buried him in a trench and left him with a permanently disabled knee. He was invalided to England in May 1917 and returned to Canada that November. As his injuries were permanent, he received his army discharge in January 1918 and left his unit with the rank of Sergeant. In September 1918, George Derby joined the Department of Solders’ Civil Re-establishment, the forerunner of the Department of Veterans Affairs. During World War II, he was District Administrator for the Department in Vancouver. He headed a committee responsible for drafting the Veterans’ Charter, which set forth the provisions for members of the Armed Services returning to Canada and planning to re-enter civilian life. His work on this committee took him to wartime England where he was awarded the Order of the British Empire in 1943 for patriotic and philanthropic work. When George Derby returned to Canada, he became Western Regional Administrator in Vancouver for the newly formed Department of Veterans Affairs. In 1946, he negotiated the land acquisition for a new veterans’ hospital, and in that year, the George Derby Centre was named in his honour. He remained with Veterans Affairs Canada in Vancouver until his retirement in 1956. He died in Shaughnessy Hospital at the age of 81 on January 5, 1971.
The cenotaph, which received Community War Memorial funding through the Commemorative Partnership Program, serves to honour Veterans and commemorate those who died in service to our country. Imperial War Graves Commission member Rudyard Kipling recommended the inscription "Lest we forget" which has widely be inscribed on war memorials since the First World War. The phrase "Lest we forget" which forms the refrain of "Recessional" by Rudyard Kipling, is taken from Deuteronomy 6:12: "Then beware lest thou forget the Lord which brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt".
