I'm wondering if anybody can help? I'm after good reference books on canadian armour from D-Day through the Normandy campaign, ideally on the 2nd canadian armoured brigade, has anyone got any ideas?

Barry Beldam of 'Armoured Acorn' might have what you're looking for:
http://www.armouredacorn.com/

Nick, what kind of information are you looking for - campaign history, camouflage and markings, or other?

For campaign and history, I'd recommend:

Marteinson, John and Michael McNorgan. The Royal Canadian Armoured Corps. The Royal Canadian Armoured Corps Association. Ontario, CN. 2000. ISBN: 1-896941-17-6.

If you need more detailed information, then the best reference is the three volume set "Official History of the Canadian Army in the Second World War" published by the Canadian Minister of Defense, Ottawa, CN in the '50s - 60's.

The volume of the Northwest Europe campaigns is the third:

Stacey, C.P. Col. Official History of the Canadian Army in the Second World War: Volume III "The Victory Campaign: Operations in North-West Europe 1944-1945." [Canadian] Minister of Defense. Ottawa, CN. 1960.

These have no ISBN numbers and are long out of print, but fairly easy to find (Amazon, Abe Books, etc) and not too expensive. (Wonderful full color fold-out maps!).

For camouflage and markings, I'd recommend:

Guthrie, Steve and Barry Beldam. Camouflage & Markings of Canadian Armored Vehicles in World War Two. Part 1 and Part 2. Model Centrum Progress. Warsaw, PL. 2008 and 2009. Part 1 ISBN: 978-83-60672-08-2; Part 2 ISBN: 978-83-60672-09-9.

Also, Barry Beldam's excellent website, Armoured Acorn -

Armoured Acorn

Check out the Canadian Vehicle Markings page under the References tab for camouflage and markings.

For specific Canadian vehicles, Service Publications has a series of brief, but quite nice, pamphlet-booklets covering different AFV's and softskins -

Service Publications

These are very reasonably priced and service and shipping is fast.

Unfortunately, Canadian (and other Commonwealth forces) are not very well represented with mainstream references like British forces are.

Even Dick Taylor's most excellent "Warpaint" series only briefly and incidentally touches on variations for the markings of Commonwealth forces' vehicles. However, since most of the Commonwealth forces followed the basic British camouflage and markings orders, directives and regulations, the "Warpaint" series is very useful for sorting out the fundamentals.

HTH,

Cheers guys that might well help, what i'm trying to find is a bit of a needle in the proverbial, archive pics and markings/serial numbers for a the 27th armoured regiment, the Sherbrooke fusiliers, a firefly and last but not least one that survived the Normandy campaign, like I said "a needle" and probably highly unlikely due the battering the Canadians took during the campaign.