The Agenda with Steve Paikin (Audio) - Why VE Day Is More Relevant Than It's Been in Decades

Episode Date: May 9, 2025

It's been 80 years since Allied forces defeated Nazi Germany in World War II. Why is it still important to recognize Victory in Europe, or VE Day? Three historians discuss the significance of this anniversary, not just to help us understand the past, but to comprehend the present. Margaret MacMillan, emeritus professor of International History at Oxford University and the University of Toronto and author of "War: How Conflict Shaped Us"; Tim Cook, chief historian and director of research at the Canadian War Museum and author of "The Good Allies: How Canada and the United States Fought Together to Defeat Fascism during the Second World War"; and Jeff Noakes, historian at the Canadian War Museum and author of "Forged in Fire: Canada and the Second World War" join Steve Paikin to discuss. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hello everybody in the Hammer and Beyond. We are coming your way. May 10th at the Music Hall in downtown Hamilton. We're recording a new episode of TVO Today Live and we'd love to see you there. We're talking to the amazing and multi-award winning Canadian musicians, Sarah Harmer, Cadence Weppen, and Tom Wilson,

about the power of music and musicians in our culture, and especially during tumultuous political times. Tickets are free, thanks to the Wilson Foundation. Go to tvo.org slash tvotodaylive or search it directly on Eventbrite. So join us, May 10th, 7 p.m. in Hamilton. It's been 80 years since Allied forces defeated Nazi Germany in World War II. Why is it still important to recognize Victory in Europe or VE Day? We thought we'd invite three historians to discuss the significance of this anniversary,

not just to help us understand the past, but also to comprehend the present and future a little bit more. So let's welcome in Oxford, UK, Margaret McMillan, Emeritus Professor of International History at Oxford University and the University of Toronto and the author of War, How Conflict Shaped Us. In our nation's capital, Tim Cook, Chief Historian and Director of Research at the Canadian War Museum.

He's also the author of The Good Allies, How Canada and the United States Fought Together to Defeat Fascism During the Second World War. And Jeff Noakes, historian at the Canadian War Museum and author of Forged in Fire, Canada and the Second World War. And it's great to have you three with us here on this important anniversary on TVO tonight. Let's start with, well, let's start with 80 years ago.

And here's a little bit of a speech from perhaps the greatest leader of any democracy at any time. Roll it, Sheldon. Hostilities will end officially at one minute after midnight tonight, Tuesday the 8th of May. But in the interest of saving lives,

the ceasefire began yesterday to be sounded along all the fronts. Our gratitude to our splendid allies goes forth from all our hearts in this island and throughout the British Empire. We may allow ourselves a brief period of rejoicing but let us not forget for a moment the toils and efforts that lie ahead. Advance for Kenya, long live the cause of freedom, God saved the King. Amen.

Margot, take us back 80 years. What impact did that speech have on Europe and on us? It was, as Churchill's speeches so often were, putting into words, I think, the emotions and thoughts of many people. He was a master of rhetoric. And I don't mean this as a criticism. He had a way of expressing what people were feeling.

And he was right. It was a very difficult time. Europe had been liberated. The Allies had won in Europe, but the war with Japan still went on. And so the Allies still had an immense task ahead of them, which they thought would last at least for another two years. Tim, what would you add to that? I would say Europe, of course, was in ruins.

This was a victory that came at a terrible cost, an unbelievable cost. Probably 60 million killed, the destruction of empires. And as Margaret has alluded to there, when wars end officially, the 8th of May, 1945 here, or the 15th of August in 1945 with the war against Japan or the signing there of the 2nd of September, of course wars, they continue on. They have a long trailing, the aftermath of war, the legacies of war. And so this is an important day to mark and yet we have to acknowledge of course that the the long legacy of war is felt for years,

and probably, we could say, 80 years later, still to this day. More on that later, but Jeff, perhaps you could follow up on the Japan angle of this story, because of course, 80 years ago was just the end of the war in Europe. World War II was not yet over, so how much of an exhale was there truly in Europe and here in Canada?

Well, obviously in Europe the people who were there on the ground at the time this is happening realized the fighting is over for them. There is, many of them will often express that they had perhaps planned great celebrations but felt subdued by the events that had unfolded. But there was a recognition that the war had to continue onwards. And one of the questions, for instance, for Canadian military personnel in Europe was whether they would volunteer for the war against Japan. Also the acknowledgement that their fighting was over but fighting continued.

In Canada it was much the same. Most of the focus had been on the war in Europe and especially by 1945 the war against Germany but there's an acknowledgement that fighting needs to continue against Japan but also questions about what role Canada and Canadians will play in those activities. As the news got out Canada of course celebrated significantly and we've got a few pictures we want to just share with our audience right now. And for those who are listening on podcast, I'll try as best I can to describe what we're seeing. This is a photo taken along Bay Street in Toronto, once word had reached North America.

And it is, as you might expect, I mean, it's just beautiful celebration, people on cars, streamers in the streets. It's VE Day celebrations on Bay Street. John H. Boyd taking that picture. And then let's go to another one. Old City Hall. Of course, there was no new City Hall yet. This is Old City Hall. Again, Bay and Queen in downtown Toronto and a big crowd there gathering to celebrate the news that had come out of Europe.

And let's go to Parliament Hill for one more. This was the scene in Ottawa. There's the Peace Tower. First one looking at Parliament Hill. This is Wellington Street directly in front of and looking at the entrance to the front lawn on Parliament Hill. And again, a massive crowd. And then a parade.

This is Spark Street in Ottawa. VE Europe Victory in Europe Day Parade on Spark Street, again, in our nation's capital. And let's do a clip here. We've got a clip provided by the Canadian War Museum, which is so ably represented on our program here tonight. People celebrating on Spark Street in color, no sound, but lots of smiles, lots of celebration, quite palpable. Okay, roll the children.

There's a VE Day sign over the marquee at that theater. People walking in the streets, celebrations. This is really quite extraordinary footage in color from all those years ago. Okay, Tim, follow up on that if you would. What's happened? take us to today. What's happened to the enthusiasm that we saw there today? Well, I think today is the 80th anniversary.

So we're not having the riotous celebrations as there were in Canada and really across the victorious world, the West that had won this terrible conflict. What is happening today? I think we're in a much more somber place. We are commemorating, we are bearing witness to this generation. I think we still understand the importance of the Second World War and the lessons it may tell us and And perhaps, Steve, we'll talk a bit about that. But we are at a point, 80 years later, where almost all of those who have served are now gone. And we should remember 1.1 million Canadians served in uniform.

That was from a country of about 11 and a half million. We were a consequential nation. Our factories, our farms, our mines, we were supporting the allied powers and we were a ranking power and that I think is worth remembering today. But I suspect many Canadians will probably be reflecting upon their own personal histories, their family histories, a grandfather, a grandmother who may have served. The national contribution is probably less prevalent today,

and yet we should remember that, because we were an important nation in this necessary war. Margaret, maybe I could get you to follow up on that. Tim called us a ranking nation, an important nation in the prosecution of this war 80 years ago. We'll have a lot of younger people watching this program who may find that a little hard to get their heads around because we're not today. So tell us how important we were back then to the successful outcome on behalf of the allies of World War II. I think we were crucial.

In fact, the whole British Empire was crucial in enabling, first of all, Britain to stay in the war. I mean, there's often a myth, and I see this in England where I am at the moment, that Britain fought alone after 1940 when France was defeated until the Americans came into the war at the end of 1941. But it wasn't alone. It had a very large empire and the contributions of that empire, including Canada's, were critical in maintaining Britain as a fighting power and contributed hugely to the eventual Allied victory. Canadians patrolled the North Atlantic. They played a very important part in getting convoys of materials and men across to Europe, which made

possible the D-Day landings, among other things. Canadians also, a quarter of the RAF, the Royal Air Force Bomber Command in the UK, were Canadian, a quarter of the RAF, the Royal Air Force Bomber Command in the UK, were Canadian, a quarter of the pilots were Canadian. And our industries geared up for war, our farms geared up for war. I mean, we were very important indeed. And I believe, but Tim and Jeff will correct me if I'm wrong, that Canada had the fourth biggest armed forces in the world in 1945 when the war ended. Hmm. I've certainly heard that we've had something like the fourth biggest navy in the world, to be sure.

We were a huge maritime power back then. But Jeff, maybe follow up on this. When you think of the picture of the allies, it's always Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin. William Lyon Mackenzie King is not in the picture, our prime minister at the time, although he certainly thought of himself as being an important bridge, you know, between those three figures. In fact, was he? Yes, he is, and he's certainly an important bridge between Churchill and Roosevelt especially.

Mackenzie King has the idea that as Canada is next to the United States but also part of the British Empire, he can use these connections especially in the crucial years before December of 1941 when the United States enters the Second World War to help gain and build American support for the British war effort, for the Allied war effort as a whole. There are obviously the Quebec conferences as well where Mackenzie King pictures himself as playing an important go-between role, and also building on the resources that Canada

is able to bring to bear in the war, as has already been very well discussed, economic resources, industrial production, food, natural resources as well, in addition to the military forces that Canada is able to mobilize. You know, it's already been pointed out, I think, by Margaret that the United States got into the war late, that the Brits often forget that we were there almost from day one, as soon as, we're certainly there in month one after Poland was invaded by Germany. Tim, I wonder though, you know, America clearly was indispensable to the successful outcome

on behalf of the allies of World War II. I wonder how the rest of the allied forces regarded their late entry into the war and whether they are, I don't know, claiming too much credit for how this thing worked out. I don't know. You tell me. It's a good question. And I, I think what's clear is that Nazi Germany and its allies could not have been defeated by one nation. It couldn't have been defeated by Britain with its empire or Commonwealth or by the United States on its own. And Churchill, that wonderful clip you played at the front, the

splendid allies, that includes the Soviet Union. And so it required this enormous coalition. And probably the genius of the allies in the Second World War was bringing together all of these nations in a unified war effort in a way that the access powers, if we think of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan and whatever we want to classify Italy as, and smaller nations, we're not able to coordinate in the same way. And so that is critical. No single nation won this war. We need to say that.

Canada played a key part. And yes, we were in the war from the 10th of September, 1939. And one of the reasons why I wrote my book, The Good Allies about Canada, the United States and the war, I wanted to tell my American friends of what we had done in the war, because in this country, for whatever reason, and Steve, you and I have talked about this in the past,

we don't always talk proudly about our military history. We don't always share our incredible stories. And we haven't for many years taught this important part of our past. That isn't to say also that Canada won the war on its own. It did not. And yet we were, as I think we've discussed here, a consequential nation. Margaret, I have a very bizarre question for you here, so indulge me if you would. We've talked on this program in the past about the fact

that your grandfather is a former British prime minister, David Lloyd George, and he died a couple of months, I think, before the world experienced VE Day. And I wonder if you've ever thought about how unfortunate it was, given his role in British history, that he never got to see that day. Oh, I don't know.

He was very old. By the way, he was my great grandfather. Sorry. He was my grandfather. I'd be very old indeed. I'd be 150, I think. Apologies. I didn't mean to age you like that.

That's fine. But I think he was sick. He'd been sick, I think, from about 1940 onwards. And although Churchill offered him posts, like, for example, the British ambassador in Washington, he wasn't well enough to take them. And I think he was, in fact, very pessimistic about the war, as a lot of people were who'd come through the First World War. He just wasn't sure that Britain could do it again, because the British had lost so much in the First World War. And so I think until very close to the end, how

much he knew at the end, I don't really know because I think he was ill, but he must have wondered if Britain would be able to survive. So yes, in a way it's sad that he didn't live to see the end of the war, but I think in another way his time had gone. Maybe follow up on that if you would because as you point out Britain was no longer the empire after the war that it was before the war and it had an enormous job to do in terms of rebuilding everything. Give us some of the flavour of the day of how that country, that former empire, started

to take the first steps of rebuilding itself to the country it is today? Well, the British had essentially bankrupted themselves in the Second World War, and they knew that would happen. It was something they realized in 1940 when they decided to fight on. But as they saw it, and I think they were absolutely right, and Churchill put this very eloquently, there was no dealing with Hitler. You couldn't trust his word. He would promise to let you keep your empire and then he'd take it away as soon as

he possibly could. And so the British did fight on knowing, I think, quite cold heartedly, I mean, calculatingly, that it was going to cost them enormously. And you see this in the correspondence among the British themselves and the occasional complaints about the Americans during the war, that the United States is just becoming more and more powerful and Britain is becoming less and less powerful and it's having to sell its overseas assets. They know that the Empire probably isn't going to survive. I mean, Churchill always famously said, I did not become His Majesty's First Minister to preside over the dissolution of the British Empire, but I think he

knew very well that the Empire was probably not going to survive in its current form, and it didn't. And of course, the government then came in even before the war against Japan had ended, the labor government was committed very much, I think, to winding up the empire and recognize they were in a very new world. I think the British still hoped that they would continue to be a major world power. But what happened in the late 1940s and 1950s showed that they were simply not going to be the power they once were, and that the United States had become a superpower.

Jeff, let's talk about some of the other relationships as well. Obviously, the former allies, the United States and the Soviet Union, became bitter adversaries after the war, and the Cold War then began. But what about Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States? What was the relationship like immediately after the war and going

forward? Well, it's a relationship that's in flux as has already been discussed as as Margaret has mentioned and explained. The United Kingdom finds itself bankrupted by the Second World War and the British Empire that was there in 1939 is no longer there and is in the process of drastically changing and the British Empire that was there in 1939 is no longer there and is in the process of drastically changing and the United Kingdom is not the global power that it was just six years before whereas the United States has become a global superpower. The United States is also Canada's next-door neighbor and one of the grave concerns that emerges quite literally almost as

soon as the Second World War ends and only a few kilometers from where Tim and I are sitting is Igor Guzenko's defection and the revelation that the Soviet Union had been spying on the Allies during the Second World War. And so this sets the stage for what soon becomes known by Church, soon becomes known as the Cold War and Churchill's famous speech at Fulton about the Iron Curtain descending across Europe. For a variety of reasons including Canada's proximity to the United States and the need to collaborate on things like continental defense against the possibility of air attack from the Soviet Union over the North Pole, the

Canadian military starts to reorient itself more strongly towards the United States. And also for economic and other reasons, there are political realignments and also to a certain degree cultural realignments between the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada that unfold as a result of the Second World War and in the years that follow. Tim, could you build on that as well? What did you see happening to Canada and its role in the world, its significant role in World War II, which then of course began to lessen towards the point where we are where we are today, not a military power in any stretch of the imagination at all. Yeah, Canada is fundamentally transformed by the Second War,

this incredible exertion, both at home and abroad. When we bring back those fighting forces, the million or so veterans who survive, and we should remember 45,000 Canadians were killed during the war, another 55,000 wounded, we built up this country. The Social Security Net is perhaps the greatest legacy of the Second World War. The shift in alliances that Jeff has spoken to, where Canada reorientates to the United States, we become entangled because of wartime industry, something that we've never been able to untangle, and that we've only become more deeply entwined with the United States. And of course, we begin also to look outward, partially at balance against the United States,

because we are now firmly a North American nation, even if for another generation our hearts, I think, are still with Britain, we begin to look outward. So a founding member of NATO and our forward-thinking diplomatic corps, which was consequential for another generation or two there. All of this is part of the legacy of the Second World War, which goes far beyond the fighting aspects, although that was absolutely crucial, of course, to defeat the odious Nazism and other aspects. So this is one of the reasons why 80 years

later we're still here talking about this. This matters and you can see the reverberations or the echoes of this war over 80 years to where we are today and I think even going forward beyond this. Well, there are a lot of questions, I guess, thanks to Donald Trump about NATO today, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which of course emerges, Jeff, after the end of World War II. Can you educate us on the role Canada played 80 years ago in the creation of that body as it was just getting started?

Well, I mean, NATO doesn't get formed fully until a few years after the war, but Canada is there as a founding member of NATO. And this is in part, in large part, a recognition by Canadian politicians and diplomats that collective security is what they see as the necessary means of avoiding another global conflict. And it's worth remembering for a lot of these people, they've experienced two global conflicts in a lifetime. So somebody like

Lester Pearson, who plays such an important role in Canadian diplomacy and ultimately becomes a prime minister, served in the First World War as a diplomat during the Second World War and later goes on to political roles. For them, the possibility of a Third World War happening in the very near future is quite real. We now know, of course, that didn but in 1946, 1947, 48 and 49 when NATO was formed it's a very different take on things and the idea of collective security, of effective collective security, is something that's very much front of mind and of course also looking at the failure of the League of Nations in the interwar period and especially in the 1930s to constrain and deter aggression like Italy's invasion of Ethiopia or Germany's various actions in

the 1930s ultimately leading up to the outbreak of war. So the experiences of the Second World War and the lead up to the Second World War have a very strong shaping effect on Canada's post-war actions, including involvement in NATO. Margaret, I think we just heard Tim use the expression, the echoes of World War II. And I wonder, as we consider those echoes, and you see what's happening with Russia and Ukraine today, does what's happening there for you

echo the kind of situation we saw in Europe at the end of World War II? Well, I think in some ways Putin is an heir to Joseph Stalin, the Russian dictator or the Soviet dictator at the end of the Second World War, in that they both want to reconstitute the greatness of Russia. Stalin famously looked at a map at the end, towards the end of the Second World War in Europe and said, I've got back Bessarabia, I've got back the Baltic states, I've got back the things that the Tsars had that we lost. And I think Putin is driven very much by the same thing. I mean, they hark back to a great

Russian history when Russia had a great empire. And I think Putin's moves into the Ukraine, his attempts to dominate Belarus, his threats to the Baltic states, his moves in Central Asia, are all part of that. I mean, he sees himself very much as in that great tradition of Russian leaders who built a great Russian empire. And that includes the pre-Bolshevik, the pre-communist peoples, the czars of Russia, Catherine the Great, Ivan the Terrible, Peter the Great, and so on. And I think that was becoming clear towards the end of the Second World War. As Tim and Jeff have said earlier, I mean, the alliance was an alliance of convenience, except I think between the British and the Americans, there was more

sympathy that was more in common. They shared more values, more cultural values, more history. But the alliance with the Soviet Union was purely pragmatic. I mean, Hitler attacked the Soviet Union, that brought him into the war on the side of the British and the Americans who immediately offered him support and in the case of the British offered him a treaty. As Churchill famously said, if I heard that the devil was against Mr. Hitler, I'd go down to hell and offer him a treaty. And I think that's how they felt about Stalin. It was an alliance built on convenience and it was not going to outlast the war.

It was already under terrific strain by the by V.E. days. The Soviets were consolidating their hold in the centre of Europe. And I think what we're seeing now is, I think, very much that same sort of thing that happened, that a relationship that had been built on convenience that people perhaps thought was stronger than it was, is now shattering. And I think we are looking at a very different sort of world and the institutions that came out of the Second World War are beginning to disappear as well. So the shadow is a very long one but I'm not sure how much longer it's going to continue shading us. Well Tim maybe you should follow up on that because of course the current American president is very much I suppose trying to upend much of what our understanding was of post-world war institutions and the kind of relationship that allies ought to have. Do you as you look back and as you look at

what's happening today, do you see us being at one of those, I don't know what do you historians call them, like hinge points or you know? Inflection point. Yeah, yeah exactly. Are we at one of those, I don't know, what do you historians call them? Like hinge points or, you know? Inflection points. Yeah, exactly. Are we at one of those? Yeah. 2025 is going to be a year that future historians look back on, without a doubt. I'm a historian, Steve, I'm more comfortable looking backwards and forwards, but, you know, seeing these great moments and living through them, this is quite a period.

And certainly Canada and the United States is going through an incredibly fraught period that I don't have to tell anyone who's watching this. We are living through it. And these traditional alliances, relationships, trade pacts, friendships, have either been shattered or been severely tested. There's a lot to say there and we don't have a lot of time, but I guess the one thing I might say to draw back to the Second World War is that too was a period that Canadians lived through, which they did not know how it would end.

We have the benefit of hindsight here. We know when victory came. Those Canadians did not, and they didn't know as well how they would deal with the tremendous change that was thrust upon them. And so perhaps if we are looking for something from the past, it is that Canadians have always dealt with these difficult periods, maybe not every year, every month, every day, that seems to emanate in that Canadian-American relationship or looking abroad to what's happening in Ukraine or Gaza or the many other wars fought around the world. We do understand that we live in a much more dangerous world.

I think that is very clear. Geography has always been our great shield. It was our great shield during the Second War, during the Cold War, during the post-Cold War. It is still to this day, but it is challenged and fraught, and we are threatened. And we can look to that eastern front, where we have almost a thousand members of the Canadian Armed Forces in Latvia. We can look to the Arctic which I think is much closer to home and much One that Canadians now I think agree on that we need to figure out how to better exert our sovereignty And we look across the 49th parallel and the border and how we will deal with our

our longtime ally who doesn't appear today to Want to be that ally going forward. Jeff, we may have been 80 years ago naive enough to think that that, I know World War I was supposed to be, the war to end all wars, turned out not to be. World War II, I'm sure people thought that at the time, thank goodness we got through all this and Europe is never gonna go to war like that again. But of course, that didn the time. Thank goodness we got through all this. And Europe is never going to go to war like that again.

But of course, that didn't happen. Three decades plus ago, there's major war in Europe in the Balkans. Russia and Ukraine are at it today, thanks to this immoral and illegal attempted invasion by Vladimir Putin. Are we simply going to have to come to terms with the fact that Europeans are just as capable as everybody else in the world with

perpetuating war as much as we'd like to think that we finished it all 80 years ago today? Well there's the saying that often gets trotted out and it's sometimes attributed to Trotsky but he may not have said it, that you may not be interested in war but war is interested in you, in the sense that people may think they're done with war. In 1945 you'll see people desperately hoping that they're finished with war. Mackenzie King, to bring it back to a Canadian Prime Minister, who's in San Francisco for the founding of the United Nations,

talks about the need to expend the greatest possible energy and all human ingenuity to prevent a repetition of such a conflict. But of course, as you've said and as we've been talking about in the last few minutes, this hasn't meant an end to these conflicts. There is at least during the Cold War some idea of stability, albeit an immensely dangerous stability in Europe, where the nuclear deterrent prevents situations and alliances prevent situations from becoming, like you mentioned, the wars in the Balkans or other situations like that.

But in a post-Cold War period, that's part of the experience that people see is that Europe returns to situations where there are outright armed conflicts. And we see them throughout the world. And a lot of the post-Cold War period and the dissolution of these large alliances and spheres of influence has meant that more of these situations either emerge or come to people's attention. I think we might very much hope that 80 years on after the end of the Second World War in Europe

we'll not be seeing more major conflicts. But as Tim said, we look back at history. As many people say, we look back at history and people who hoped that the First World War would have been the war to end wars or that after the Second World War we would most certainly have learned never to repeat this again. But we find ourselves here in 2025 asking whether we have in fact learned those lessons. Well Margaret, let me put that to you, maybe a bit of a personal question. But how depressing do you find it as a historian to look back at the events of 80 years ago today

and presumably think to yourself, I thought we were done with all this, and yet here we are again. The world just does not seem to be able to give up the need to go to war. How depressing do you find that? Well, extremely, because the weapons of war, the means of war, are now so much more deadly. I mean, we've increased our capacity hugely since the end of the Second World War, and our capacity to destroy and obliterate life.

A Third World War would be catastrophic in a way that even the first two world wars weren't. I don't even like to speculate what would happen. And I think one of the dangerous things is that perhaps people don't remember enough history. Those who live through wars don't usually want another war. I mean, there are always exceptions, but those who live through war know what it costs. And the further away you get in is those people disappear from the scene. Then you get people who talk lightly about war. I mean, you know, I find it alarming beyond belief that Americans and Chinese are talking about not if we go to war, our two countries go to war,

but when our two countries go to war. And that's really dangerous. And we have other causes of conflict around the world. So, you know, I think we just have to cross our fingers and hope. And it does not help that the United States seems to be behaving more and more like a rogue state. In our last couple of minutes here I guess I'd like to hear from all three of you on Tim, you first. 80 years later, what's the most important thing we need to remember about the events of 80 years ago today? Well, maybe I'll come back to this idea of Canada as a

consequential nation during the Second World War, as an important ally to the United States and Britain as that country that connected them in some way as Jeff spoke to, but one that stood on its own as well. I mean, think of the Canada before that coming through the depression. We were poor and we were fairly pathetic. The war changes us. We become industrialized.

We become more tied to the North American economy. We have many decades of peace and prosperity in Canada. That's important to remember. That war was absolutely crucial to our country, just as it is to global history. And maybe to come to this point about teaching our history, it's important to understand these things. I've had people ask me, Tim, if I don't know anything, I can still go on. And I, yeah, you probably can, but I think you will not understand your place in our country and Canada's place in the world.

You will not be able to contribute to the important discussions we have around us. You will be deficit in our discussions about democracy, war and conflict. And maybe as Margaret has given us the most important warning for today, we should not ever blithely sleepwalk towards war. I mean, this is ghastly. What is happening in Ukraine is unthinkable in the meat grinder of warfare and battles on that Eastern Front and the attacks on civilians, all of which we have seen before in the past, but all of which should churn our stomachs and hope for an end to that terrible conflict, but an end where the illegal war from Putin does not justify in my mind his success in whatever his strategic aims were.

So let us perhaps use this as a day to reflect upon service and sacrifice, but also to perhaps better understand our shared history. Jeff, what do we need to remember singularly, most importantly about the events of 80 years ago today? I would say the fragility of peace, that we look at these events of 80 years ago and we see the celebrations of liberation, the celebrations of the end of the war, but just of how fragile the world that be by and large that there would not be another global conflict, although many of us will remember the Cold War and the desperate fears of conflict

then, but that we're never truly done with war, unfortunately. And I think a secondary point that I always emphasize, visitors to the museum, the people I'm talking to, and that quite often veterans have emphasized to me, is that the people who went through these events and who helped bring victory were ordinary, everyday Canadians, as we like to say, ordinary people in extraordinary times. And so these people, while they're separated 80 years from time from us, are not necessarily all that different from those of us taking part in this conversation or those of us who might be watching from home today. Last word, Margaret McMillan.

Well, thank you. I agree with Jeff and Tim so much, and they've put it so well. I think the only thing that I would add is that we can take perhaps some hope from the Second World War that people can act in surprising ways. They can be better than they thought they were. And the ways in which Canadians came together, the ways in which Canadians who were by and large, I think, a peace-loving people, managed to transform themselves into people who were prepared to get into ships and prepared to get into airplanes

and prepared to fight on the ground is encouraging that we are capable of pulling together for a great cause. Let's remember that, too. Maybe I can be permitted a final observation here which is somebody made the point that so many from the greatest generation who fought for our freedom are no longer with us. So I have to point out that it was a beautiful thing to see 101 year old Lieutenant General Richard Roemer overseas in the Netherlands

giving a speech at a ceremony just the other day. Wonderful that he got there and wonderful that he is still with us. Anyway, and wonderful that we've had three such magnificent historians on our program tonight. Tim Cook, Jeff Noakes, Martin McMillan, and indeed anybody, if you're in our nation's capital, get to the Canadian War Museum, particularly at this time, well worth seeing. Thanks so much, you three.

Thank you. Thank you.