Laurier Professor Emeritus Terry Copp appointed member of the Order of Canada

June 27, 2024

Terry Copp, professor emeritus in Wilfrid Laurier University’s Department of History, has been appointed as a member of the Order of Canada. Copp, founder and director emeritus of the Laurier Centre for the Study of Canada, was honoured for his work to help restore Canada’s place in the history of the Second World War.

“Terry Copp’s contributions to the study of Canadian history have placed him at the top of his field and provided Canadians a better understanding of the country’s role in significant historic events,” said Laurier President and Vice-Chancellor Deborah MacLatchy. “The Order of Canada is certainly a well-deserved honour. Terry’s work has been critical in providing a deeper context for our history.”

The Order of Canada is one of Canada’s highest civilian honours, recognizing outstanding achievement, dedication to community and service to the nation. Appointments are made by the governor general on the recommendation of the Advisory Council for the Order of Canada.

Copp is a leading scholar of Canada’s military role in the Second World War and an influential advocate for military history. In his more than five-decade career he has earned a national and international reputation as a scholar, advocate, public historian and teacher.

Copp began his career as a labour historian but shifted into military history during the 1980s at the suggestion of his friend and mentor Robert Vogel of McGill University. As a child, Vogel escaped Nazi Germany with his family on the eve of the Second World War. Together, Copp and Vogel published the groundbreaking Maple Leaf Route series which argued against the official, largely critical assessment of the Canadian Army in northwest Europe during the Second World War.

Their method became a hallmark of Copp’s approach to military history: careful rereading of primary sources, interviews with veterans and in-person study on the ground, conducted during many trips to historic battlefields with his wife, Linda.

In 1991, Copp opened the Laurier Centre for Military, Strategic and Disarmament Studies (now the Laurier Centre for the Study of Canada) with Professor Marc Kilgour as a place for academics to explore the Canadian military and peacekeeping. Second World War veterans eager to find a voice and understand their place in the wider war were early contributors to the centre’s journal, Canadian Military History. As part of his work, Copp was also instrumental in the creation of the Canadian Battlefields Foundation’s Study Tour Program, which has taken hundreds of Canadian university students on historian-guided tours in Europe.

In addition to many other academic accomplishments, Copp is the author of nearly two dozen articles and book chapters, editor or co-author of 25 books, and author of more than half a dozen titles. His most recent work is Montreal at War 1914-18.