The Canadian Defence League was an organization that advocated military training for all men in Canada.
It was founded in 1909, at the suggestion of William Hamilton Merritt III,[1] and was formally inaugurated on September 10, 1910, in Toronto.
[4] Ultimately, the organization favoured universal military service, on the Swiss model.
[1] Albert Carman, William Lash Miller, Maurice Hutton, Byron Edmund Walker, Reuben Wells Leonard, and Rufus S. Hudson were among the League's boosters.
[5] Desmond Morton argues that the League's efforts in favour of military training "failed miserably only months before the outbreak of war".