canada's response to the war very much mirrored the americans, in terms of increased industrial capacity, and we came out of the war as a relatively strong military power, which seems to have scared the americans. with the onset of the cold war, and the realization that we'd be caught in the middle of it, our focus shifted to trying to stop active conflict between the major powers, and the embrace of a system of global governance to maintain stability.

this is actually widely written about, so i'm not really sure what he's talking about.

but, the truth is also that the role that canadian soldiers played in the war was largely as pawns and cannon fodder for the imperial states, like britain and, later on, the united states. canadian solders (along with australian soldiers) actually did much of the heaviest fighting, and assumed much of the highest casualty rates, in both theatres of the war. our national myth does exist, and is around things like the massacre at dieppe and similar massacres that occurred in the pacific; while our soldiers were seen as disciplined and well trained, and were consequently actually feared more than most others in the alliance by the enemy, the high casualty rates we experienced no doubt contributed to our character as a nation after the war, and the realization of how much more badly we would suffer, should this happen again - as we'd be the ones actually fighting the war on the ground, not the americans or the british.

so, it is very much true that canada is what it is today due to trauma from the second world war, and perhaps that has something to do with mr. cook not liking the way we talk about it.

but, we do talk about it - we just do so a little bit differently, and perhaps in a more adult manner, than you see in hollywood films like saving private ryan.

we suffered and sacrificed more than any other country in the western alliance, and the rest of the world knows that, and so do we - it's why we're a little different than the yankees to the south.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/ww2-second-world-war-pacific-japan-anniversary-1.5708496