Throughout the Second World War, over 150,000 men were compelled to arms under Canada's National Resources Mobilization Act, but these men could not be sent overseas unless they volunteered for front-line service. Their status as conscripts led many contemporaries to construct them as disloyal and unpatriotic foreigners because they were not willing to subscribe to ideas surrounding patriotism and voluntarism. These constructions speak to the profound disquiet that the conscription issue triggered for the nation.
This thesis explores contemporary ideas about conscripts, as well as the perspectives of compulsory recruits themselves, to argue that Canadians were unsettled by waning British imperialism, emerging ideas interconnected with the rise of the welfare state, and the country's lack of its own sense of self. These conclusions provide a more nuanced understanding of conscription and identity outside of the high-level political approach that dominates the historiography.
