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The Second World War was not going well for the allies in June, 1940. The German blitzkrieg had raced across Western Europe, forcing British forces into a mass evacuation from Dunkirk between May 27 and June 4.

The fall of France seemed imminent, so Italy’s fascist leader Benito Mussolini decided it was time to enter the war and share in the spoils. On June 10, Mussolini declared war on Britain and France.

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“The hour of destiny has arrived for our Fatherland,” Mussolini declared in a speech before 80,000 people in the Venice Palace Square in Rome.

“We are going to war against the decrepit democracies … to break the chain that ties us to the Mediterranean.”

As part of the British Empire, Canada declared war on Italy. But it had already been preparing for a larger, longer war by banning more than a dozen organizations across the country on June 5.

Some were pro-fascist, such as the National Unity Party, a Quebec organization that was sympathetic to the German Nazis. Its leader, Adrian Arcand, was a virulent anti-Semite. According to the Canadian Encyclopedia, he proclaimed himself “the Canadian Fuhrer.”