Few defence ministers would be as consequential as Hellyer, who urged Canada to accept nuclear weapons after several years of acrimonious public debate on the matter in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Hellyer was also responsible for the controversial decision to unify and integrate the service branches of the Canadian military into a single organization, the Canadian Armed Forces. Despite the opposition to the idea at the time, the military remains a unified force to this day.
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