In Living and Learning in Retirement’s 50th year, Ted Barris continues his Friday lectures this winter at Glendon College’s Centre for Excellence. His series, “Missing in Action: Untold Stories of Canadians’ Participation in Historic Moments,” features famous periods of world history, in which Canadians played vital roles.

Lecture No. 3, “The deciding factor in winning WWII.” In December 1939, just three months into WWII, Canadian Prime Minister Mackenzie King legislated the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan into existence. It created the largest wartime training scheme in history. It would generate 231 training sites across Canada, employ over 100,000 Canadians and cost $1.75 billion (Canada’s largest WWII expenditure). The graduates of the BCATP would fill Allied air forces with 225,000 qualified aircrew and in Churchill’s words become “the deciding factor in the war.”

Ted Barris has published 20 non-fiction books, half of them wartime histories. His book, The Great Escape: A Canadian Story, won the 2014 Libris Award as Best Non-Fiction Book in Canada. His book, Dam Busters: Canadian Airmen and the Secret Raid Against Nazi Germany, received the 2018 NORAD Trophy from the RCAF Association. And his book, Rush to Danger: Medics in the Line of Fire, was long-listed for the 2020 Charles Taylor Prize for Non-Fiction in Canada. In December 2022, Ted Barris was appointed Member of the Order of Canada.