Eighty-four years ago, May 10, 1940, Winston Churchill became the Prime Minister of Great Britain. The new Prime Minister was faced with a formidable task – the British army was surrounded at Dunkirk; the French government was contemplating an armistice with Germany; there was the possibility of invasion of Britain; and no meaningful support could be expected from the United States. But one country was solidly behind him. Canada’s Prime Minister Mackenzie King immediately telegraphed Churchill assuring him of the whole-hearted support of himself and his government. Three weeks later, King gave a radio broadcast and this included - “I speak the heart and mind of our country when I say that every fort in Canada will be another Calais, and every harbour will be another Dunkirk, before the men and women of our land allow the light and the life of their Christian faith to be extinguished by the powers of evil, or yield their liberties to the tyranny of Nazi brutality.”               These weren’t just words – this country was the lifeline keeping Britain alive - in the two years before the United States entered the war Canada was providing two hundred pounds of food per annum for every man, woman and child in Britain.  And as British professor & military historian Richard Holmes wrote -  “In 1940/1941 Britain would not have survived as an independent nation had it not been for the agricultural, industrial and financial aid received from Canada.” The following year on June 2nd, 1941, Churchill broadcast to the people of Canada and this included: “To Nazi tyrants and gangsters it must seem strange that Canada free from all compulsion or pressure, so many thousands of miles away, would have hastened forward into the van of the battle against the evil forces of the world. The people of Great Britain are proud of the fact that the liberty of thought and action they have won through their long romantic history should have taken root throughout the length and breadth of a vast continent from Halifax to Victoria.” In December 1941 Churchill arrived in Ottawa to speak to Parliament. The affection and gratitude of Canadians was voiced by the Toronto Star which reported his arrival       - “Churchill is mobbed by thousands. Never in the history of the capital has there been such an un-stemmed outburst of enthusiasm.” Upon Churchill’s death in January 1965 the Toronto Telegram gave this tribute –  “He marches today in the glittering procession of history. Probably no man has come closer to the attainment of immortality than this great commoner.” Please be upstanding and raise your glass to THE Man of the 20th Century – Sir Winston Churchill.