They made the guns that helped to win the war and save the world.

The 16,000 women who worked in the massive Lakeview Small Arms Munitions factory during the Second World War manufactured millions of Sten guns and Lee-Enfield rifles.

Allied soldiers used them to defeat Nazi Germany, fascist Italy and imperial Japan.

Their contribution to the war effort was recognized Thursday at Queen's Park as part of the celebrations surrounding International Women's Day.

Liberal MPP Charles Sousa (Mississauga South) hailed them for "helping to advance women's rights" and building the modern Canadian economy by remaining in the workforce after the war ended in 1945.

"They worked as welders, tool and die makers, riveters and carpenters," Sousa said in a statement in the Legislature that was greeted with a standing ovation from members of all three parties.

Toiling up to 12 hours a day in one of the largest armaments factories in Canada for between 25 cents and 50 cents an hour was not easy.

"It was hard work," remembered Mary Hanson, 85, one of five veterans of the plant on hand for the ceremony.

In 1942, Hanson moved from a farm outside Winnipeg to what is now Mississauga to work in the factory because economic opportunities were few and far between.

Kay Waldner Rylko, 87, was living on her family's farm near Saskatoon in 1941 when a newspaper ad caught her eye.

"There was a big advertisement in the paper that said, `Girls, girls, we need you out east making the guns,'" she said.

"So we thought, well, this is a good opportunity to take ... it was the Depression time and (my family) thought, well, if you get a job somewhere, it's good."

On a farm in Grand Valley, about 100 kilometres northwest of Toronto, three sisters felt they could also do their part for the war effort.

Bernice Glowe, 85, Olive Purdy, 87, and Violet Driscoll, 88, remember it as a hurly-burly time in their lives.

"We met a lot of young people and we had fun, you know," said Purdy.

"It was tiring, but we still were able to go dancing Saturday nights in the city – in different places, the Palais Royale and way out on the Danforth sometimes," she said with a laugh.

Jim Tovey, vice-chair of the heritage advisory committee for the city of Mississauga and a community activist in Lakeview, said the women, whose American counterparts are known in popular culture as "Rosie the Riveter," were true pioneers.

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"In Canada, it was a duty and an opportunity," said Tovey, who has worked to preserve the surviving parts of the Lakeview factory as a heritage site.

"It was really the entrenchment of the feminist movement in Canada, the work these women did."