Marcie Lane – Brian Fraser Recent Graduate Award 2025
Engagement Lead, Canadian Armed Forces Transition Group
Social Service Worker, 2022
Police Foundations, 2000
On May 27, 2025, Their Majesties King Charles III and Queen Camilla visited the National War Memorial in Ottawa to mark the 25th anniversary of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. They were joined by Warrant Officer Olivia Vernelli, a 16-year-old cadet in the Royal Canadian Army Cadets. She was wearing the distinctive cap badge of the Royal Canadian Regiment, which used to belong to her father, Master Corporal Scott Vernelli. In 2009, when Olivia was only six months old, Vernelli was killed in action in Afghanistan.
Olivia’s mother, Marcie Lane, watched from the sidelines, filled with pride for her daughter. As Queen Camilla laid a bouquet of flowers on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier—a bouquet Olivia had presented to her—Lane understood that the hardships in her life had paved the way for her daughter’s success and happiness. Her heart was full.
Warrant Officer Olivia Vernelli (right) accompanies Their Majesties King Charles III and Queen Camilla at the National War Museum. Ottawa, May 27, 2025. Source: Government of Canada.
A veteran of the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) herself, Lane is currently a federal public servant working at the CAF Transition Group. Since graduating from Algonquin College’s Social Service Worker program in 2022, she has worked in the Military Transition Engagement and Partnerships (MTEP) team. Her role is to promote collaborations in the Military-Veteran-Family (MVF) empowerment ecosystem. This country-wide network of organizations offers programs, services, and supports for military people transitioning to civilian life.
When Lane advises people, she makes a point of listening carefully before jumping to conclusions. “These people are the experts in their own lives,” she explained. “We can’t rely on assumptions or stereotypes. That’s one of the lessons I learned at Algonquin College.” Once she understands their barriers and what they are truly motivated to do, she works with community resources and the connections she’s fostered over the years to provide solutions.
Lane’s lived experience has served her well as a social service worker. She too has had to go through difficult transitions in her life. The first time she attended Algonquin College was actually over 20 years ago. In 2000, she joined the CAF’s Military Police Reserve Force while studying Police Foundations at Algonquin College. She graduated in 2003. After navigating military sexual trauma, she persevered and decided to continue serving as an imagery technician—a military photojournalist. It was also around this time that she met Vernelli and the two fell in love.
The photos she took as a photojournalist changed her life. One of these pictures comes from a 2007 tasking to Afghanistan. She joined a high-ranking cabinet minister in a visit to a clandestine school for girls. When she picked up her camera to photograph the students, the interpreter made a joke to elicit smiles, which worked, but the students all covered their mouths.
As Lane recalls, these girls knew that showing happiness could put them in danger. “Scott had already been deployed twice, and that photo helped me understand what he had been fighting for,” she said. “In a way, those girls weren’t allowed to be happy. Witnessing that changed who I was as a person and the mother I would become to Olivia.”
After Vernelli died, Lane was overwhelmed with grief. Raising Olivia gave her strength to carry on, but as the late Jamie Bramburger of the Algonquin College Pembroke campus wrote, it was “exercise and fitness that helped her turn her life around.” Lane became a military fitness instructor in Gagetown, New Brunswick, with the Canadian Forces Morale and Welfare Services (CFMWS), and developed a renewed sense of purpose. A few years later, however, she had to quit her job unexpectedly. She had been diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer.
Lane went to live at The Ottawa Hospital’s Maurice Grimes Lodge with other cancer patients, while Olivia stayed with her grandparents in Petawawa, Ontario. Lane’s roommate at the lodge struggled financially and was at risk of becoming unhoused. “We had the same type of breast cancer, but we were each living totally different experiences,” Lane said. “I had the love and support of my family and the Armed Forces, and she was struggling to stay alive and provide alone for her teenage son. I was touched by her resilience.”
When Lane got better, she was motivated to help people in need. Veterans Affairs Canada gave her an opportunity to go back to school, and she took it. This is when she enrolled in the Social Service Worker program at Algonquin College.
Now, three years after graduating, Lane is doing what she committed to do when she had cancer: helping people in need. She has gone back to school yet again and is completing a postgraduate certificate on Addictions and Mental Health—also at Algonquin College—so she can better assist people struggling with these issues.
“When people learn about my story, I hope their takeaway is dignity, resilience, and how close-knit the Military-Veteran-Family community is,” Lane said. “Olivia will soon go off to university and enjoy opportunities that were fought for and that we do not take for granted. The adversity, the dark days, the hard work—it’s all been worth it.”
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