How many Canadians and Newfoundlanders served in the Second World War?

Discover Canada states the figure plainly. The guide writes: More than one million Canadians and Newfoundlanders (Newfoundland was a separate British entity) served in the Second World War, out of a population of 11.5 million. This was a high proportion and of these, 44,000 were killed. The number the test wants is therefore more than one million.

Two clarifications come straight from the same source. First, Newfoundland was not yet part of Canada in the Second World War — "Newfoundland was a separate British entity" — and only joined the country in 1949. So the guide's figure deliberately combines the two populations to capture everyone from what is now Canada who served in the war.

Second, the population context matters. With 11.5 million people in Canada and Newfoundland combined, more than one million in uniform was, in Discover Canada's wording, "a high proportion." The cost was 44,000 killed — far less than the First World War's 60,000, but in a war that ran roughly the same length.

The setting is the war itself. Discover Canada says "the Second World War began in 1939 when Adolf Hitler, the National Socialist (Nazi) dictator of Germany, invaded Poland and conquered much of Europe. Canada joined with its democratic allies in the fight to defeat tyranny by force of arms." By the end, "Canada had the third-largest navy in the world." So the more-than-one-million figure includes a navy that had grown to be the third-largest in the world.

The question is testing whether new citizens have remembered Discover Canada's precise wording — "more than one million Canadians and Newfoundlanders... served in the Second World War." The guide attaches three more facts to the same sentence: a population of 11.5 million, a "high proportion" serving, and 44,000 killed.

The other answer choices each test the reader. 500,000 understates the figure by half. 1.5 million and 2 million overstate it. Discover Canada uses no such alternative numbers; the only number for Second World War service is "more than one million."