A First World War-era illustration depicts a Canadian soldier in action. [Canada in Khaki]

Half of Canadians say they would go to war for their country; youth, not so much

STORY BY STEPHEN J. THORNE

With the U.S. president threatening to economically bludgeon Canada into submission as the 51st state, just under half of surveyed Canadians (49 per cent) say they would go to war for their country.

Those most willing to lay it on the line, 55 per cent of whom said they were willing to fight, were over 54 years old. Among the 1,619 Canadians surveyed, those of fighting age—18- to 34-year-olds—were far less inclined to enlist.

In response to the question, “Could you ever foresee an armed conflict that would compel you to volunteer for military service in a combat role?,” just 43 per cent of the youngest group told the Angus Reid Institute they would.

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Sculptor Tyler Fauvelle poses with his monument of Fern Blodgett Sunde in Farsund, Norway, during its unveiling on May 8, 2025. [courtesy Tyler Fauvelle]

A duplicate of a Canadian war memorial at home in Norway

STORY BY ALEX BOWERS

No one expected her to return from her initial voyage across the Atlantic. To make the crossing during the Second World War meant navigating mined waters in treacherous weather, knowing full well U-boats may lurk below.

But with a bucket nearby, Fern Blodgett Sunde made the trip 77 more times aboard the Norwegian merchant vessel Mosdale. Sunde was the first Canadian woman to earn a second class wireless operator’s certificate, and the first women to be a deep sea radio operator. She served until the war’s end, and 75 years later, her life and legacy was captured in a bronze public memorial in her hometown of Cobourg, Ont.

The same place she “watched the Great Lake ships go by, and dreamed of a career at sea, even though it would have been impossible for a young woman born at the end of the First World War.”

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Retired general Walt Natynczyk is a former vice-chief of Canada’s defence staff. He served on peacekeeping missions in Cyprus, Bosnia & Herzegovina, and as deputy commanding general of III (US) Armored Corps, with which he deployed to Baghdad in 1998-99.[Stephen J. Thorne]

Rules-based order not working, says British field marshal

STORY BY STEPHEN J. THORNE

The rules-based system of international order that has existed since the end of the Second World War has not been a great success, marked by a series of recent mishaps that could usher in a return to the great power system of the past, says Britain’s former defence chief.

Speaking at a fireside chat ahead of the 35th conference of the Royal Commonwealth Ex-Services League (RCEL), Field Marshal The Lord Richards of Herstmonceux said the United States, Russia and China are steering the world order away from the system of political, legal and economic rules and institutions established by the Americans and their allies after 1945.

The rules-based order has been based on principles such as sovereignty, territorial integrity and dispute resolution through diplomacy. It aimed to promote stability, co-operation and predictability in international relations.

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The award winning book, The Taste of Longing by Suzanne Evans, has been optioned by acclaimed documentary filmmaker Noura Kevorkian. [BTLBooks]

The Taste of Longing: A novelistic biography of WW II PoW Ethel Mulvany

STORY BY ALEX BOWERS

“I wrongly thought the last thing you would want to think about,” admits author Suzanne Evans, “is food when you’re starving.”

But having discovered the Second World War story of Canadian Ethel Mulvany, her understanding of hunger changed.

On Feb. 15, 1942, the Imperial Japanese Forces landed on Singapore island and forced the surrender of an Allied garrison of 90,000. In what Prime Minister Winston Churchill considered the “worst disaster and largest capitulation in British history,” thousands of captured civilians, including Mulvany, were among those to be rounded up, separated between men and women—the latter with children—and imprisoned at Changi Jail. The ensuing years would be ones of misery and longing.

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