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Q. I hear conflicting accounts of the number of War Brides who came to Canada. Some say 50,000, others say 48,000. How many War Brides and their children actually came to Canada?
Q. How many women went back to Britain and Europe after coming to Canada to live? Q. Is there a national Canadian War Brides Association?
Q. Did the Government of Canada declare 2006 Year of the War Bride?
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Q. I hear conflicting accounts of the number of War Brides who came to Canada. Some say 50,000, others say 48,000. How many War Brides and their children actually came to Canada? A. While is true that there were nearly 48,000 marriages between Canadian servicemen and the British and European women they met during the Second World War, not all of these women came to Canada. Between 1942 and 1948, 43,454 War Brides and 20,997 children were transported to Canada in an immigration scheme that was organized and paid for by the Canadian government. Nearly 4,500 women refused the offer of free transportation to Canada for various reasons: about half of the husbands found work overseas and chose to stay there with their wives and children. But the other half of the 4,500 women refused to come because their marriages had ended in separation or divorce.
Q. How many women went back to Britain and Europe after coming to Canada to live?
A. We'll never know how many women returned to their homes overseas when their marriages did not work out in Canada. The reason why is because once the war emergency was over, the War Brides were no longer classified as "War Brides" per se: rather, they were Canadian citizens who were emigrating to Britain or Europe. Also, not every War Bride returned to her homeland without her husband: some husbands and wives went back together when the promise of a better life in Canada did not transpire. Anecdotal evidence suggests that 5-10 % of the total number of 43,454 War Brides who came to Canada on the official transportation scheme eventually left Canada and returned to their home countries. Q. Is there a national Canadian War Brides Association?
A. There is not a "national" organization that represents Canadian War Brides. Most provinces have provincial organizations that were organized over the years. Some have disbanded. Saskatchewan formed the first provincial War Brides Association and its members continue to meet. This website is NOT the voice of any official War Brides organization nor does it claim to be. It is a volunteer effort financed and run by historian Melynda Jarratt, who receives absolutely no funding whatsoever from any government or private agency to run this website.
Q. Did the Government of Canada declare 2006 Year of the War Bride?
Although many Canadians believe that the Federal Government declared 2006 Year of the War Bride, the Federal Minister of Heritage, Bev Oda, refused to do so when asked. However, six provincial governments, beginning with New Brunswick, did declare Year of the War Bride in their own provinces: New Brunswick, Manitoba, British Columbia, Nova Scotia, Ontario and Prince Edward Island. Saskatchewan declared November 2006 "Month" of the War Bride.
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