Style as a Substitute for Issue Articulation in Canada-U.S. Relations

Abstract

Issues have not disappeared in Canada-U.S. relations. (1) In Canada's relations with the United States, as in other matters, for example, according to Seymour Martin Lipset, identity is the quintessential Canadian issue. (2) What has changed in recent years, however, is the treatment of issues at the top of the authority pyramid as a tactic of overall foreign policy conduct--the issues themselves remain. Historical Highlighting of Issues When John Diefenbaker met John F. Kennedy and British Prime Minister Macmillan in Nassau in December 1962, there was no uncertainty, either publicly or privately, about issues. (3) Kennedy wanted Diefenbaker to place, in Canada, missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads. Once again, Diefenbaker demurred. There were other high-level diplomatic exchanges regarding this matter, including a visit to Ottawa by senior U.S. military figures. Canada and the United States had no doubts regarding the ranking of foreign issues, or where the two countries differed, regardless of the language used to express these differences of perspective. Similarly, when Prime Minister Trudeau enunciated the doctrine of Policy for Canadians, the absence of any mention of the U.S. was not a problem for Washington to decipher. Trudeau had articulated a Canadian desire for diversification of Canadian foreign policy, especially Canadian trade policy toward Europe and toward trading partners other than the United States. Washington never believed that this would be easy to achieve. But that a link with Europe would be attempted and, if successful, would have consequence for Canada-U.S. relations, Washington fully comprehended. Perhaps the most conscious and focused expression of foreign policy issue-making came in the Mulroney government. Canadians are very hard on their prime ministers, especially after these powerful officials again become ordinary citizens. Although historians have yet to give Mulroney his due in terms of foreign policy achievement, his effort to get the Reagan government to do something about acid rain was masterful. With Derek Burney as Chief of Staff and Allan Gotlieb as Ambassador to the United States, Secretary for External Affairs Joe Clark and the Prime Minister first declared that acid rain was a national issue, not a local issue as the United States contended. They then asserted with naked clarity (and some on the American side would say with naked brashness) that acid rain was the number one foreign policy anxiety for Canada. This hyping of a single issue (in the U.S. view) turned out to be greatly successful for Canada, obtaining for it expenditure of a magnitude not otherwise to be expected on a matter upon which the United States was vulnerable but also potentially quite recalcitrant. All of these historical examples involved efforts by one government or the other to move a foreign policy agenda by highlighting priorities. (4) Issues were not ambiguous. Nor was the relative importance of these issues left unclear, no matter how much they may have been coated in diplomatic language or expressions of warmth and good feeling between governments. Do Situations and Interests Create Foreign Policy Issues? Some of the causal underpinnings of these approaches to bilateral diplomacy are relevant here. In 1960, the United States found that its bomber fleet was becoming increasingly vulnerable to attack. Location of missiles at different spots in North America, including Canada, would help to diffuse the threat and to increase the deterrent capability of the U.S. nuclear forces. Hence this situation, which was historically unique and specific to technological need, drove the issue of whether to request permission to locate nuclear missiles in Canada. Likewise, the Canadian interest in an independent foreign policy undergirded its effort to diversify its trade links in the first Trudeau government, and eventually to seek a special relationship with Europe through the so-called contractual link. …