F-35A, the variant Canada is purchasing, flys from Eielson, Alaska, to Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., in 2018. [Darin Russell/Lockheed Martin]

Canada’s connections to the F-35

STORY BY AARON KYLIE

“We are full steam ahead…focused on making sure we’ve got the infrastructure, the pilots, the training in place for the arrival of those F-35s,” Deputy Defence Minister Stefanie Beck told a House of Commons committee in early October 2025.

Despite more recent media speculation that Canada may abandon its $27.7 billion purchase of 88 of the fighter jets from U.S. defence company Lockheed Martin—seemingly sparked by mid-November discussions with Swedish government officials related to general military co-operation and the country’s Gripen aircraft built by Saab—details suggest the initial tranche of F-35s are still set to arrive as scheduled in 2028.

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Australian arimen attend a training school in Saskatchewan in 1942. [Australian War Memorial]

Historian Karl James on the Australian-Canadian wartime bond

STORY BY ALEX BOWERS

“In Australia, just as in Canada,” explained Karl James, head of military history at the Australian War Memorial, “there has been much political and popular discussion surrounding the stability and reliability of our great and powerful allies. Many of the assumptions and defence assurances that the western Allies have taken for granted in the years since the Second World War are being tested.”

The author and editor cited the works of his Canadian colleagues, Marc Milner’sSecond Front (2025) and the late Tim Cook’s The Good Allies (2024), as prime examples of recent discourse on such topics, notably within the context of Canada’s relationship with the U.S. and U.K.

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Stephen J. Thorne, Legion Magazine‘s late senior staff writer, enjoys a visit from the Canadian Veteran Service Dog Unit from nearby White Lake, Ont., at Ottawa’s Legion House in June 2024. [Aaron Kylie]

Remembering Stephen J. Thorne

STORY BY AARON KYLIE

“Stephen?”

“No, I’m Aaron,” I responded to the question from a Legionnaire at a hotel in Saskatoon in September 2025.

But I understood the confusion. After all, Legion Magazine’s senior staff writer Stephen J. Thorne was a regular, covering Royal Canadian Legion events across the country since he joined the publication in 2016. If there was a man with a camera roaming around, there was a good chance it was him.

“Oh, sorry,” said the Legionnaire. The apology, however, felt as though it had double meaning—sorry for the mistake; but also, a tinge of regret that I wasn’t actually Stephen. I get that, too.

After a sudden illness, Stephen died on Dec. 5, 2025, at age 66.

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Author Allan Levine profiles Canada’s dollar-a-year-men in his latest book. [Courtesy Allan Levine]

Historian Allan Levine on how Canada’s business leaders helped win WW II

STORY BY ALEX BOWERS

“We’re always looking back on the Second World War and seeing it as an important time in Canadian history,” said historian Allan Levine, “but this is one story that’s never really been told.”

It has now, however, in the award-winning author’s most recent book The Dollar a Year Men, published by Barlow Books.

Rather than any battle blow-by-blow or front-line testimony, Levine’s narrative largely remains within the confines of Canada at a time when the country needed to mobilize its industry to support the Allied cause. Civil engineer-turned-politician C.D. Howe, then serving as minister of munitions and supply—and nicknamed the Minister of Everything for his far-reaching influence—took on that challenge, enlisting dozens of business leaders from across the country, their task to bring about the “greatest economic metamorphosis” ever experienced in Canada.

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