By Patrick Longchamps
The Pembroke campus has hosted the second speaker series of the year in an attempt to offer more learning opportunities to the community at its Festival Hall on March 24.
Gwynne Dyer, an author, historian and journalist visited the college to speak about his views of the First World War all the way through to the most recent Iraq War. The presentation covered some of the lessons learned from these times to show how the world has become a much safer environment.
“I want to talk about what Canada went through. What we learned from the First World War and afterwards,” said Dyer. “I also want to talk about how war changed and what the world learned about it.”
Dyer had a unique view of the reason why Canadians joined the First World War. He saw the main reason being that Canadians still felt indebted to Great Britain for the protection they had provided.
The speech commemorates the 100th anniversary of the First World War.
“So when Britain declared war on Germany in 1914, the Canadian government said that they would help. By early the next year they had sent a quarter million soldiers over and there really wasn’t any threat to Canada,” said Dyer.
The speaker series is an event the college is holding to invite experts on particular subjects to the campus to expand its continuing education programming.
There have been plans to have four people visit the Pembroke campus this year. This includes Dyer, Ed Lawrence CBC gardening expert, William Winram world champion free diver and shark researcher and Jeff Hunt Ottawa RedBlacks owner.
“The college wants to get information to more people. The best way of doing this is being consistent in bringing some of the best high profile public speakers,” said Jamie Bramburger, manager of community and student affairs. “I think the line-up we have so far is a very good start, plus what we will be announcing over the next few months.”