Organizers of this year's Canada Day parade are apologizing to veterans for failing to issue invitations.

Legion Branches around Montreal have now been formally invited to participate, but a lot of confusion still remains.

The secretary of the parade, Caroline Polcsak, says the organization has been through many changes which led to this year's episode of forgetfulness.

"There was a cross of communication there and I'd like to apologize on behalf of the entire team," said Polcsak.

The parade was started in the late '70s by Dr. Roopnarine Singh, an immigrant from Jamaica. For years Singh was the driving force behind the parade,

"Even working as a cardiologist he had that parade right beside him like a baby all the time, and his black book with all the contacts," said Polcsak.

When Singh stepped down as the organizer in 2005, he passed on that book full of contact information to Claude Leclerc.

Leclerc died last spring of a heart attack, and other volunteers were left scrambling to pick up the slack.

Because of Leclerc's death, critical contact information was not passed on, which is what Polcsak describes as the heart of this year's confusion.

"I think there may have been a slight misunderstanding, or someone misunderstanding the situation, thinking that maybe people who have been coming for over 25 years do not need an invitation," said Polcsak.

But Stan Kircoff, President of Legion Branch No. 4, says that's exactly why veterans need to receive marching orders.

"You check in with the organizer who's there, whoever's the supervisor for that section, and they'll tell you, you line up here and you wait for the parade to start and you follow the people in front of you," said Kircoff.

Legion No, 4 has now received its invitation, as have other branches, but veterans are still unhappy with the state of affairs.

"I don't know if the left hand knows what the right hand's doing. And it puts us in a little bit of a pickle because we don't know what we're doing," said Kircoff.

Parade organizers say this year's mistake will not be repeated, and in future years they will contact the legions much earlier.