Stanley Barracks: Toronto's Military Legacy

By: Aldona Sendzikas

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Synopsis: Winner of the 2012 Heritage Toronto Award of Merit Stanley Barracks begins with the construction in 1840-41 of the new facility that replaced the then decaying Fort York Barracks. The book recounts the background of the last facility operated by the British military in Toronto and how Canada’s own Permanent Force was developed. During the course of the stories told in this history, we learn about Canadian participation in war, including the two world wars and the barracks’ use as an internment camp for "enemy aliens"; civil-military relations as Toronto’s expansion encroached on the lands and buildings of the barracks; the establishment and growth of Toronto’s Canadian National Exhibition; the struggles and discrimination faced by immigrants in Canada in wartime; the employment of the barracks as emergency housing during Toronto’s post-war housing shortage; and the origins of Canada’s famed Royal Canadian Mounted Police. In short, Stanley Barracks is the story of Toronto.