OTTAWA — Eighty years after the end of the deadliest conflict in history, the number of living Second World War veterans has dwindled to a few thousand.
Veterans Affairs Canada said it estimates that as of this year, there are 3,691 surviving Canadian veterans — 667 women and 3,024 men.
Veterans Affairs also believes the number of living veterans from the Korean War is 1,909. Previously, it did not separate the numbers from the two wars under the government’s War Service Veteran population statistics, saying in 2024 it believed there were some 7,300.
“The events of the Second World War are very rapidly moving from the realm of lived history of people you can talk to about these events into history, where you can’t talk to the people who remember them,” said Jeff Noakes, Second World War historian at the Canadian War Museum.
From the horrors of bloody D-Day battlefield combat on the beaches of France’s Normandy to returning home to post-war economic uncertainty and a national housing shortage, the stories live on but there are fewer and fewer chances to access the memories and stories of those who lived it.
“Even if you were five years old, when the war ended, you’d be 85 now. So it’s this big shift from knowing a neighbour or a family member or somebody you could talk to about this into … moving out of the experience of lived history.”
On top of military conflict, Canadians would have endured rationing, government control over information and other restrictions of freedoms under the War Measures Act, and internment of Japanese, Italian and other Canadians seen as a threat at the time.
The War Museum has collected interviews with some of the last remaining veterans and their families, currently on display in the national capital as a special exhibition, called “Last Voices of the Second World War,” running through Jan. 18.
The war took place from 1939 to 1945, with more than 45,000 service members giving their lives and upward of 55,000 suffering wounds fighting Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Germany and shaping the global order to come.
This Remembrance Day marks eight decades after conclusion of the major conflict, which ended in Europe on May 8, 1945, and in the Pacific on Aug. 15.
At this year’s national ceremony, in a rare turn of events, Chief Justice Richard Wagner will be filling in for Gov. Gen. Mary Simon.
Simon is unable to attend as she recovers in hospital from a respiratory virus, Rideau Hall said late Monday.
Prime Minister Mark Carney, Chief of the Defence Staff Gen. Jennie Carignan, Veterans Affairs Minister Jill McKnight and other dignitaries will attend the ceremony at the National War Memorial in Ottawa.
This year’s National Silver Cross Mother, Nancy Payne, whose son was killed in Afghanistan in 2006, will lay a wreath on behalf of Canadian mothers who lost their children due to military service.
The federal government is looking to shine a light this Remembrance Day on the Canadian military’s activities in the Americas throughout the years.
When Lt.-Col. Carl Gauthier appeared before the Senate last week for its special ceremony of Remembrance, he told the chamber that the military’s many contributions at home and throughout the Americas reflect “our steadfast commitment to being a good neighbour and ally.”
“Canada’s veterans have always been there for us and for our neighbours, from floods in the Prairies, to storms in the Maritimes, to rescues at sea, the Halifax explosion and earthquakes in Haiti,” he said on Nov. 7.
This year also marks 25 years since the entombment of Canada’s Unknown Soldier, a tribute to a fallen First World War soldier who remains unidentified. It commemorates the more than 118,000 Canadians who have sacrificed their lives in service to their country.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 11, 2025.
Kyle Duggan, The Canadian Press
