56th Annual Memorial Banquet 2022

After a two-year pandemic-related hiatus, the Society was pleased to host a sold-out banquet on June 21 at the University Club at the University of Alberta.

It was a pleasure to host our honorary patron, Her Honour, the Honourable Salma Lakhani, AOE BSc, LLD (hon), and other distinguished guests at our Churchill Banquet.

Held on the summer solstice and keeping with the Society's decades-long banquet tradition and aims, one hundred and fifty participants enjoyed a magnificent dinner in Churchillian fashion.

Lieutenant General (Retired) Paul Wynnyk, CMM, MSM, CD, was a compelling keynote speaker on Russia’s war against Ukraine, sharing his personal and unique experience and perspective.

Early in his speech, he stated, "Zelensky, like Churchill, has not—in the face of odds that have been compared to David and Goliath—accepted any form of defeatism, nor any reasonable terms that would compromise the territorial integrity of Ukraine."

Wynnyk continued, "Sir Martin Gilbert, Churchill’s official biographer, wrote that ‘it was Churchill’s own opposition to all forms of defeatism that marked out the first six months of his warm premiership and established the nature and pattern of his war leadership.'"

Wynnyk served as Commander of the Canadian Army from 2016 to 2018. In July, he was named Vice Chief of the Defence Staff. He retired in July 2019.