Legion Acclaims New Dominion President
at Winnipeg Convention

(Winnipeg) — A Coleville, Sask. resident has been elected Dominion President of The Royal Canadian Legion. Mrs. Patricia Varga was acclaimed today at the Legion’s 43rd Dominion Convention in Winnipeg as the new leader of Canada’s largest veterans’-based community service organization.

On acclamation she became the 39th Legionnaire to hold the office in the organization’s 84 year history. She is a former member of the Royal Canadian Navy.

The Dominion Convention, held every two years, is the Legion’s governing body that sets the policies and programs for the 350,000 member organization formed by World War One veterans in 1926 at Winnipeg’s Marlborough Hotel.

Mrs. Varga is a former President of Saskatchewan Command and has been serving at the dominion level in various capacities for 17 years.

The new Dominion President has a long history of service to the Legion.  She was first elected as a branch president and has since held all the required offices at  branch, district and provincial levels. She was first elected at the Dominion level in 2002.

As the Dominion President Mrs. Varga takes on the leadership of the Legion as it continues to deliver services to all of Canada’s veterans and their families.  

“The basic role of the Legion will not change,” she said following her acclamation by the more than 1,300 delegates to the Winnipeg Convention from across Canada, the United States and Europe. “Our purposes and objects were set by the founders of this great organization and we will continue to maintain them.  And even though there are technological and social changes happening within our own structure, these will help us remain viable in the community and the nation,” she noted.   

The worrying annual drop in membership numbers has been a concern for the Legion over the past 20 years. “But,” she notes, “we aren’t the only ones who are finding out about the declining volunteer base in our society. It is a malaise that has confronted many service clubs in this country.  Despite that, we must tackle the issue, and come to grips with it, because our sacred trust with this nation is to keep going for the good of all who are serving and have served, as well as their families.” 

“To acquire the strength we must have to effect change we need a strong membership base,” she continued. “We have to look at what our current members want and what the potential new member wants so that we can remain strong through providing for the wants and needs of the individual. It is one of the ways that we will be able to ensure that the sacred trust we have inherited is never broken,” she stated.

“My goal during my term of office is to make this organization stronger,” she said. “According to a poll done recently our Canadian youth think we have a future and I believe that they will come forward to ensure that this organization carries on with its main missions – the care of our veterans and the perpetuation of remembrance.”

Biography of Mrs. Patrica Varga

For further information please contact Bruce Poulin at Dominion Command, The Royal Canadian Legion, at (613) 591-3335 ext. 241 or by cell at (613) 292-8760.

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