Canada-US Relations Research Articles

Review: An Independent Foreign Policy for Canada? Challenges and Choices for the Future

AN INDEPENDENT FOREIGN POLICY FOR CANADA? Challenges Choices for Future Brian Bow Patrick Lennox, editors Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2008. 248Pp7 $24.95 PaPer ISBN 978-0-8020-9634-0John English's biography of Pierre Trudeau recounts a White House discussion following prime minister's 1971 visit to Washington. We understand Canada has its own right to its destiny, Richard Nixon told his advisors, and Canadian politician could survive without that ideology. The remark came at a moment when relatively easy days of Canada-US relations were a faded dream. Canadian nationalists were alarmed at rising level of American foreign direct investment in Canada's economy. Public opinion towards US, which was in thick ofthe Vietnam War, was similarly negative. Reflecting these sentiments, political scientist Stephen Clarkson published a collection of essays entitled An Independent Foreign Policy for Canada? The contributors - a range of academics former policymakers - reassessed traditional tenets of Canadian explored whether Ottawa had means to conduct a foreign policy that would be both independent from Washington a break from diplomacy that had guided bilateral relations since 1945. Clarkson called for a more robust autonomous approach to conduct of Canadian foreign relations. Forty years later, political scientists Brian Bow Patrick Lennox have assembled a new generation of scholars - all political scientists, save one - to revisit issues that inspired Clarkson's work. The new volume considers question of Canadian foreign policy in an era of unparalleled American power (xvi) .Bow's Lennox's introduction nicely describes context of Clarkson's collection posits that there are numerous parallels between 1968 2008. There are, however, some early factual errors. Did [m]ost Canadians really have no reservations about Canada's dependence on Britain in first half ofthe twentieth century (9)? Such a claim is ignores sentiments of majority of Quebeckers. also overlooks both small but prominent group of isolationists in Department of External Affairs, including O. D. Skelton, as well as nationalist sympathies of some prominent Liberals members of Cooperative Commonwealth Federation. Further, Gordon commission study on Canadian economy appeared in 1958, not 1968, contractual link was not with Europe but rather European Economic Community (9-10). These are important distinctions in a study of Canadian foreign policy. Lastly, claim that the current Conservative government of Stephen Harper seems to have moved away from Chretien-era focus on trade with China is an early indication that this work already risks becoming dated (10).The collection of 10 essays is divided into five thematic parts. In part one, lone historian, Adam Chapnick, provides a vital examination of evolving independence that sparked original volume. He is sharply persuasively critical of a debate that created a binary misleading analytical framework that gives too much attention to Canada's relationship with US. He bemoans fact that this paradigm-especially its simple focus on value of quiet meaning of Canadian foreign policy - has dominated discussion of Canadian foreign policy over last 40 years (36).Part two examines how Ottawa has managed relations with Washington. Brian Bow evaluates suggestion that Canadian foreign policy has shifted closer to that of US out of fear that individual high-level bilateral disputes may elicit American retaliation against an independent Canadian stance. It is striking how little solid [archival] evidence there is of any clearcut retaliation over last sixty years, Bow concludes (67). That said, he suggests that grudge linkages between presidents prime ministers have occasionally affected handling of disputes, citing tense relationship between Diefenbaker Kennedy (74). …

Introduction: Canada–US Relations under Obama: Continuity or Change? ACSUS Enders Symposium, Carleton University, 24 October 2008

The Association for Canadian Studies in the United States (ACSUS) organizes the biennial ACSUS Enders Symposium as a way of promoting understanding of the evolution of Canada–US relations. The symposium also honors the work of Thomas O. Enders, who served as US ambassador to Canada from 1976 to 1979, and his work in promoting the relationship between the two countries. In other years, the symposium was held in Washington DC at the Woodrow Wilson Center, but the ACSUS board decided to move the event to Canada in 2008 in order to expand its audience and bring in new actors. Carleton University (with its Centre on North American Politics and Society and its School of Canadian Studies) and the Canada–Fulbright Foundation were brought in as partners, and the sixth biennial symposium was held 24 October 2008 at Carleton University in Ottawa. Several papers of the symposium appear here in a special issue of the American Review of Canadian Studies.

'Here Is Hell': Canada's Engagement in Somalia (review)

Reviewed by: 'Here Is Hell': Canada's Engagement in Somalia Douglas Bland Grant Dawson . 'Here Is Hell': Canada's Engagement in Somalia. University of British Columbia Press. x, 230. $85.00, $29.95 Canada's experience in the 1992–93 United Nations deployment to Somalia deserves close inspection not only as a military operation, but also as an event that signalled significant, maybe even radical, changes in the conduct of military operations at the end of the Cold War, in UN management of conflicts, and government and civil–military relations in Canada. Grant Dawson provides valuable insights into these and other aspects of the operation and he brings the complex parts together in a well-written readable style. Dawson traces the chronology of the mission from Prime Minister Mulroney's decision to join the UN mission to its end 'in recrimination and scandal.' But the story he presents is not simply another account of the scandal; rather he challenges the 'interpretation of pre-deployment decision-making and of the Canadian operations in Somalia,' a failure in command and in government. The book is heavily weighed to the period leading to the deployment of Canadian Forces units to Somalia and provides well-researched assessments of Prime Minister Mulroney's decision to deploy the force. Dawson emphasizes Muloney's belief that participation in the mission was a necessary step towards improving Canada–US relations and respect for Canada in the UN more generally. Success in this 'peacekeeping' mission was for Mulroney the means to serve the national interest and not the end in itself. As Dawson demonstrates, however, this Pearsonian foreign policy framework was soon upset by the emergence in Somalia of what others now describe as 'a continuous war among the people' which neither Canada nor the UN was prepared to fight or manage. Dawson's purpose is to concentrate the reader's attention on the difficulties and confusion in the UN and in the Canadian government and bureaucracy during the pre-deployment decision-making period and [End Page 412] in the early management of the operation. He does this very well, with new sources and with evidence taken from interviews with the political, military, and public service participants who made the decisions and managed the operation. In trying to get beyond the 'recriminations and the scandal' Dawson at times seems too ready to accept some interviewees' views that the process was in all cases rational and that errors, if there were any, were understandable in the circumstances. The indispensable Report of the Commission into the Deployment of the Canadian Forces to Somalia – which Dawson uses well – points to a decision making tainted by the institutional and personal interests of the many players in the affair. When those interests eventually led to failures and crimes in the field, many of the reasonable people Dawson quotes, according to the inquiry, participated in 'actions and decisions [that were] scandalously deficient.' Grant Dawson's study is important and should be read by anyone interested in the politics of defence and foreign policy decision making in Canada and in the UN in this period. It should be read carefully with a copy of the commission's report close at hand. Douglas Bland School of Policy Studies, Queen's University Copyright © 2008 University of Toronto Press Incorporated

Review: The Unexpected War

THE UNEXPECTED WAR Canada in Kandahar Janice Gross Stein and Eugene Lang Toronto: Viking, 2007. 304pp, $35.00 cloth (ISBN 978-0670067220)As continues to generate headlines in Canada, many have come to wonder how and why Canada became engaged in such a difficult and seemingly intractable mission. This is the question that Janice Gross Stein, one of Canada's foremost thinkers on international security, and Eugene Lang, a former chief of staff for two Liberal defence ministers, set to answer in The Unexpected War.The Unexpected War argues that, as a result of incremental decisionmaking, Canada slid into a war in southern it did not expect. The polished messages that the government delivered on Canadian goals, objectives, and achievements in hid the fact that most policy-including the decision to deploy forces to Kandahar-was the outcome of tradeoffs made incrementally and in the absence of complete information. Understanding the context is therefore essential. According to Stein and Lang, the Liberal government's cautious and incrementalist approach led Canada to accept a high-risk mission in Kandahar.Stein and Lang argue that Canada-US relations strongly informed Canada's involvement in Afghanistan. Following 9/11, Canada sent the elite JTF2 special forces and the 3rd battalion, Princess Patricia's Canadian light infantry, on a short-term mission to root Al Qaeda and the Taliban. It also dispatched navy vessels to the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Sea. Early in, early out was the mantra for the government, which wanted both to support the US and to minimize the burden on the Canadian military that had been decimated by years of cutbacks. In 2002 and 2003, Canada came under strong pressure to participate in the US-led invasion of Iraq. Although the Chretien government and most of the Canadian public opposed the Iraq War, there was nevertheless a sense that Ottawa needed to prove to Washington that it was serious about security. The Afghanistan solution, which prescribed a lead Canadian role in the international security and assistance force (ISAF) in Kabul, fit the bill. It also freed up American resources for Iraq. Although the Department of National Defence (DND) initially resisted Canada's participation in ISAF, it eventually became a leading advocate of the mission. In 2005, ballistic missile defence became another controversial issue in Canada-US relations. Many of the key players in Paul Martin's minority government supported Canadian participation in missile defence, but given the heated domestic controversy around the issue, Martin decided to stay of the American program. In order to repair the resulting damage to Canada-US relations, the government again looked to Afghanistan. Ottawa agreed to take charge of a provincial reconstruction team (PRT) in Kandahar. However, Martin still believed that was but a distraction from his real foreign policy priorities, notably in Haiti and Sudan.Stein and Lang identify General Rick Hillier, the chief of the defence staff, as a key player in Canada's involvement in Afghanistan. They describe him as brilliant, energetic, visionary, and focused on delivering results. The government's 2005 international policy statement called for greater Canadian leadership in international affairs. Hillier took this objective seriously, but, unlike Martin's cabinet, understood that true leadership required Canada to commit resources, assume risks, and, at times, take casualties. Stein and Lang highlight the perennial contradiction in trying to establish a prominent international role for Canada while trying to avoid the attendant costs.The Unexpected War is critical of Ottawa's handling of the mission in Afghanistan. According to Stein and Lang, DND repeatedly misjudged the country's political and military environment. Its officials strongly favoured Canadian participation in the Iraq War, believing that Canadian involvement would only last six weeks. …

Review: Uneasy Neighbo(U)RS

UNEASY NEIGHBO(U)RS Canada, the USA and the Dynamics of State, Industry and Culture David T. Jones and David Kilgour Mississauga: John Wiley & Sons Canada, 2007. 352pp. $33.99 cloth (ISBN 978-0470153062)If Canada and the United States best friends, like it or not, the Socred leader Robert Thompson once famously put it 40 or so years ago, then according to David T. Jones and David Kilgour our two countries today are certainly in a 'not' portion of the cycle the relationship moves further into the 21st century (2). Jones is a former US diplomat who served in Ottawa and who in recent years, especially through a spate of thoughtful journal articles, has established himself a well-known Canada hand. Kilgour is a former politician who served for many years a member of parliament for Alberta under both the Progressive Conservative and Liberal colours, and an independent. They have together written a broad work that addresses the state and prospects of the Canada-US relationship, compares the two countries, and describes many aspects of each country in considerable detail.These two former practitioners of the diplomatic and political arts not especially interested in getting anywhere deep into the kind of theoretical approaches that many scholars of Canada-US relations tend to love. The Canada-US relationship, they say, can simply be thought of as akin to an accordion being played: regularly moving and squeezing closer and then changing harmony by pilling back. It is also analogous to the psychologist's approach /avoidance concept in which, two bodies move closer, the forces to be overcome increase and push them back apart (2). To be sure, the success ofthe Canada-US free trade agreement, followed by the North American free trade agreement, has drawn the two countries together over the past decade or so. Yet this has been offset by disagreements over foreign policy, including the land mines treaty, the International Criminal Court, the Kyoto accord on global warming and, of course, the liberation of Iraq from Saddam Hussein. There has also been by a growing awareness of some social differences between Americans and Canadians. The result is an overall crankiness that spills over into the economic sector, especially on the Canadian side, where such disputes softwood lumber and Canadian beef exports to the US made into bigger deals than they really are. Therefore, Jones and Kilgour not expecting much change in the Canada-US relationship in the immediate future, especially not towards any steps that would deepen the trading relationship, such a common currency or a customs union. Where the Canada-US relationship is going right now, they conclude, is nowhere (305).The authors make it clear that they similarly uninterested in obsessing over any overarching theories, ranging from Michael Adams's notion of fire and ice to Seymour Martin Lipset's conceptions of individualism and collectivism, that explain differences between the essential natures of two countries. …

“Which Kind of Imperialism?” Early Cold War Decolonization and Canada–US Relations

Abstract: Prior to World War II, Canada's government and its citizens were generally supportive of British imperialism, and of Britain's foreign policy in general. Though specific groups within Canada—most notably Francophones, leftist and labour leaders, and growing numbers of ethnic minorities—had expressed long-standing opposition to colonialism, the nation's elites viewed themselves as partners in Britain's global civilizing project. These affinities began to break down during the 1940s, as the lessons of World War II, along with the simultaneous rise of American power and ebbing of British authority, forced Canada's leaders to reassess their attitudes and policies regarding imperialism. Yet, at the precise moment many Canadians were striving to adopt a more “American” approach to the issue, one which drew on nearly two centuries of republican-based critiques of foreign domination, the United States was reigning in its own antipathy to imperialism in light of emerging Cold War realities. This study finds that these repositionings proved disorienting for a still-powerful constituency of Anglophiles, who feared their nation was being seduced into a new and less noble imperial project.

Review: Canadian Foreign Policy in a Changing World

CANADIAN FOREIGN POLICY IN A CHANGING WORLD John Kirton Toronto: Nelson, 2007. 592pp, $73.95 cloth (ISBN 017625207x).What stands out about John Kirton is his optimistic spirit. In his book, there is no doom-and-gloom image of disappearing from view in affairs. Far from being in a steep decline, continues to be a pivotal power, a status both recognized and amplified by its membership in what Kirton privileges as central club of global governance, Group of Eight (G8). is firmly up with big players at apex of hierarchy of states.Kirtoris position on Canadian foreign policy was established in early 19803 with publication of his co-authored book with David Dewitt, as a Principal Power. ascendant position at that time was deemed to be a result of a mix of structure and agency. Under conditions of resource booms (with both global fuel and food shocks), material strengths had been underscored. Moreover, diplomatic room for manoeuvre was opened up by combination of apparent decline of US hegemony and explicit pursuit of national interest by Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. had risen to top in international status ranking by taking on a role in establishing, specifying, and enforcing order (38).Kirtoris newly published text, Canadian Foreign Policy in a Changing World, updates and expands on these themes. Despite its title, there is as much continuity as there is change in Kirtoris perception of location and space in world. Once again, US leadership is seen as being eroded, albeit this time as a result of Iraq and overstretch of its military, not detente. The opportunities for in global affairs far outweigh its vulnerabilities.The major shift in Kirton approach between two eras has been a narrowing of lens for framing Canadian foreign policy. In original work, was viewed as making a difference everywhere and on everything. principal power profile and capabilities were traced through diffuse case studies ranging from issues dealing with outer space to Middle East.In new book, role is recalibrated through an institutional concentration, and pride of place is given to role in Gy/S, especially its performance as host ofthat forum or club from Montebello in 1981 to Kananasksis in 2002. Instead of looking at issues from a functional perspective, role of as a joiner is magnified, with a focus on as a member of NATO, APEC, OAS, UN, and of course G8. Indeed, special attention is given to what Kirton terms Summit System of Institutions (499).A flavour of optimistic spirit that pervades text is captured by some of subheadings in regional overviews. The chapter on CanadaUS relations contains a section on Canada as a competitive global governor, while Europe and chapters highlight expanded eurocentricity and Canada's expansion in Americas respectively. And is viewed as taking on many of responsibilities-formerly attributed to Britain, France, and US-for African development. Looking through a framework that highlights specific initiatives, whether Zaire in 1996, African partnership forum, or G8 Africa action plan, Africa is taken to be the region where emergence as a principal power in a diffuse system [has been] most pronounced (368).The fact that Kirtoris view of Canadian foreign policy is a minority view does not deter him. Indeed, more he has become a rare species of Canadian academic, more his sense of confidence shines through. In early 19803, principal power perspective enjoyed some solid company. A collection edited by Norman Hillmer and Garth Stevenson in 1977 contained essays by a mix of academic notables around theme of as a foremost nation. …

Review: Just Dummies

JUST DUMMIES Cruise Missile Testing in Canada John Clearwater Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 2006. 283pp, $34.95 paper (ISBN 1-55238-211-7).The Liberal government's decision in 1983 to allow the US to test cruise missiles in Canada's north produced a political hot potato. For over a decade, successive governments continued to allow Americans to test cruise missiles despite overwhelming domestic opposition and political protest. In the face of such opposition, the Trudeau, Mulroney, and Chretien governments were faced with the unenviable task of trying to placate American demands for testing rights while avoiding the political fallout of such a domestically unpopular decision. Clearwater's fust Dummies provides a comprehensive history of this contentious episode in Canada-US relations. The book is the third installment in Clearwater's history of nuclear weapons in Canada-the first two being Canadian Nuclear Weapons and US Nuclear Weapons in Canada. As a trilogy, these books provide an overview of Canada's complicated history of nuclear weapons that scholars of cold war history, Canadian defence policy, and North American relations are sure to find fascinating.Just Dummies is arranged chronologically, with six chapters covering the history of cruise missile testing from the initial negotiations between Canada and the US to the termination of the cruise missile testing by the Chretien government in 1994. Chapter one provides a detailed account of Canada-US negotiations over cruise missile testing from 1980-84. The second chapter covers the history of the early cruise missile tests from 198488. The third examines the impact of cruise missile testing on broader Canadian civil society by focusing on the anti-cruise missile movement in Canada and the Direct Action terrorist attack on the Litton Systems Canada Ltd. plant in Etobicoke, Ontario. Chapter four covers the history of testing the stealth cruise missile in the late 19803. Chapter five looks at the controversy over the Conservative government's renewal of cruise missile testing in 1992-93. Chapter six examines the termination of the cruise missile testing program by the Liberal government in 1994.The chief strength of this volume is its history of cruise missile testing in Canada. Clearwater has engaged in extensive archival research and has declassified documents unearthed through numerous freedom of information act requests. The result of this exhaustive work is a detailed account of Canadian government deliberations over the cruise missile issue and an interesting portrait of Canadian-American relations. Descriptions of diplomatic exchanges between the Department of National Defence and the Pentagon, cabinet debates over cruise missile testing, and personal correspondence between Mulroney and Reagan provide the reader with a rich understanding of the interactions between the Canadian and American governments in the 19803 and early 19903.While the depth of detail of this book is its greatest strength, it also at times is its greatest liability. In many places analysis is sacrificed for description. The book reads like a detailed chronology of cruise missile testing with little exploration of the context in which these events took place or explanation of the principal actors' motives. …

"Which Kind of Imperialism?": Early Cold War Decolonization and Canada–US Relations

Avant la Seconde Guerre mondiale, le gouvernement et les citoyens du Canada accordaient leur appui à l'impérialisme britannique et à l'ensemble des politiques étrangères en général. Bien que certains groupes au Canada – pour la plupart des francophones, des gauchistes, des dirigeants syndicaux, et un nombre croissant de minorités ethniques – martelaient depuis longtemps leur opposition au colonialisme, les élites nationaux se considéraient comme des partenaires dans le projet de civilisation du globe de la Grande-Bretagne. Ces affinités ont commencé à se défaire pendant les années 40, à mesure que les leçons de la Seconde Guerre mondiale ainsi que la montée simultanée de la puissance américaine et l'effritement de l'autorité britannique forçaient les dirigeants du Canada à réévaluer leur attitude et leurs politiques en ce qui avait trait à l'impérialisme. Mais même à ce moment précis où bon nombre de Canadiens cherchaient à adopter une approche plus « américaine » à cette question, une approche qui reposait sur presque deux siècles de critiques républicaines de la domination étrangère, les États-Unis tentaient de contenir leur propre antipathie envers l'impérialisme à mesure que se manifestait la réalité de la guerre froide. La présente étude indique que ces repositionnements ont désorienté un milieu toujours puissant d'anglophiles, qui craignaient que leur nation ne soit en train d'être attirée dans un projet impérialiste nouveau et moins noble.

Drifting together: the political economy of Canada-US integration

Acknowledgements List of Abbreviations Introduction * The Analysis of Canada-US Integration: Theory, Key Concepts, and Scope * Canada-US Relations at the Turn of the Century * The Evolution of the North American Economy I: The US * The Evolution of the North American Economy II: Canada * The Origins and Nature of North American Free Trade Agreements * Political Integration in Europe and North America * North American Regionalism * North American Integration and Canadian Culture * Free Trade Agreements and Canadian Social Policies, Attitudes, and Values * Canada-US Relations in the Twenty-first Century: The Emergence of North American Politics Conclusion: Does Canada Still Make Sense? Bibliography Index

Federalism and the Evolving Cross-Border Role of Provincial, State, and Municipal Governments

THE EVOLUTION OF A MODERN BILATERAL RELATIONSHIPIn his introduction to first American Assembly volume dealing with Canada-US relations, John Sloan Dickey emphasized that book aims at a better understanding of relations in time, place, and human affairs that add up to phrase each of us uses with such unconscious ease: 'the United States and Canada,' or vice versa.' Nevertheless, coverage of bilateral relationship in this excellent volume is dominated by decisions made and actions taken by representatives of national governments in Ottawa and Washington, DC. The second volume, which appeared two decades later, does occasionally go beyond respective national beltways, with Gordon Robertsoris chapter discussing how Canadian federalism, especially unfolding events in Quebec, might eventually affect crossborder ties.2 Other chapters deal with influence of economy, culture, and environment on Canada-US relations.Thus, second volume puts somewhat less emphasis on importance of Ottawa-Washington relationship, and this is not too surprising, because between publication of first book in 1964 and second in 1985, Robert Keohane, Joseph Nye, Jr., and others had begun to write about complex interdependence and growing networks of international ties which go far beyond relations between national governments. Indeed, Keohane and Nye highlighted Canada-US relations in 1977, labelling these ties quintessential model of complex interdependence, defined by the absence of force, lack of hierarchy among issues, and presence of multiple channels of contact between societies.' For Keohane and Nye, three types of cross-border interactions are prominent in contemporary world of international relations. The first is interstate interactions, typified by official exchanges between representatives of national governments. The second is transnational interactions which involve at least one nonstate actor such as a corporation, a labour union, or a church organization. The third is transgovernmental interactions which include at least one governmental entity or representative not linked directly to leadership of a national government. In this chapter, we will focus primarily on this latter category which was largely ignored in first two American Assembly volumes and which merited only one sentence in Keohane and Nye's own study of Canada-US relationship.DOCUMENTING MULTIPLE CHANNELS OF INTERACTIONCanada and United States share a 4,ooo-mile border and another 1,500mile border separating Alaska from British Columbia and Yukon. The evolving cross-border relationship, which affects 32 million Canadians and 295 million Americans, is as complex and diverse as any in world, evincing many of features of globalization emphasized by Keohane in following statement: Interdependence refers to a state of world, whereas globalization describes a trend of increasing transnational flows and increasingly thick networks of interdependence.4 The overall complexity in bilateral relationship is illustrated in figure 1.In economic terms, United States and Canada maintain largest bilateral trading relationship in world, with two-way trade in goods and services in range of US$1.2 billion per day, up over 150 percent since 1988, year before Canada-US free trade agreement (FTA) went into effect. US foreign direct investment in Canada, a type of investment which provides Americans with control over management of companies operating in Canada, surpassed $192 billion in 2003, with US-owned companies accounting for over 10 percent of Canada's gross domestic product (GDP) and providing 1.16 million jobs for Canadian workers.5 Canadian foreign direct investment in United States stood at $105 billion at end of 2003, with more than 470,000 Americans working for Canadian majority-owned non-bank enterprises. …

The Changing of the Guard

When President George W. Bush visited Canada in late 2004, he declined an invitation to address parliament and chose instead to give the major speech of his trip in Halifax before an audience of Atlantic Canadians, including provincial premiers, several mayors, and local officials. Two weeks later, outgoing secretary of homeland security Tom Ridge met with his counterpart, deputy prime minister and minister of public safety and emergency preparedness Anne McLellan in Detroit, where the two met with local stakeholders to discuss border management issues.At roughly the same time, the province of Alberta sent an official representative to Washington, joining Quebec as the second province with its own representation there. In the fall of 2004, Canada's Department of Foreign Affairs expanded its representation in the United States with seven new consulates and offices, raising Ottawa's profile in the southeastern and southwestern United States, in particular.These new initiatives and departures from past practice in the management of the US-Canada relationship reflect a larger transformation underway. The traditional pattern of Canadian relations with the United States is being altered by three powerful dynamics. First, a generational shift has replaced US public officials with memories of the formative period of Canada-US relations after the second World War with a new cohort of younger officials. second, there has been a decentralization of the US management of the relationship, now extended to include state and local governments and being echoed in Canada. Third, these two changes are introducing US-style elite competition into the Canadian political culture. This competition has significant implications for Canadian domestic politics as well as for North American diplomacy.The general tendency in recent years has been to attribute the noticeable changes in US-Canada relations to the after-effects of the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington on n September 2001. While these events have had an important influence on policymakers in the United States in particular, they have only served to transfigure, rather than trigger, the rise of new actors in bilateral relations whose emergence was the inevitable result of deepening North American integration and the passage of time.GENERATIONAL CHANGEThe current US diplomatic relationship with Canada has relatively recent origins. The two governments exchanged diplomatic representatives for the first time in 1926, and Great Britain granted Canada the right to have an independent foreign policy with the statute of Westminster in 1931. Previously, the United States considered Canadian issues in the context of Anglo-American relations. Early Canadian diplomacy toward the United States was cautious, bearing the hallmarks of Ottawa's relationship with London during the colonial period, a heavy emphasis on cultural kinship and goodwill, and an earnest desire to institutionalize a Canadian voice or role in key policy decisions taken by the larger power.The Great Depression and the Second World War fostered a close collaboration between the governments in Ottawa and Washington as each attempted to cope with the effects of these large, transnational challenges. The New Deal in the United States was echoed years later in a set of social benefit programs instituted in Canada, ushering in an era of large public interventions in the economy in both countries. Canada's entry into the second World War led to close contacts with Washington regarding continental defence and military production even before US entry into the conflict in 1941.In the postwar period, both the US and the Canadian governments expanded in size and scope. The ranks of each country's respective civil services swelled with returning veterans who had traveled abroad for the first time in military service, and among all the foreigners they encountered, they had often found the Canadians to be the most similar to themselves. …

The North American Democratic Peace: Absence of War and Security Institution-Building in Canada-US Relations, 1867-1958 (review)

The North American Democratic Peace: Absence of War and Security Institution-Building in Canada-US Relations, 1867-1958 (review)

Bill Graham, Pierre Pettigrew, Jim Peterson

SHORTLY BEFORE THREE IN THE AFTERNOON of 5 October 2004, Governor-General Adrienne Clarkson and her husband, the writer John Ralston Saul, pulled up front of the house of commons a black limousine, on the way to deliver the second speech from the throne of Liberal Prime Minister Paul Martin.There had been a spate of stories on the possible role of the controversial governor-general if the minority government-the first a quarter of a century-was defeated a vote of confidence the house, but few observers expected anything very dramatic. The most newsworthy item seemed to be the fact that their excellencies, whom critics accused of extravagance and pretence, had arrived a limousine, rather than the traditional horse-drawn landau.The mood was well short of electric, which was fitting. In its speech, the government, which had pulled victory from the jaws of defeat at the 11th hour the run up to the 30 June election, reiterated its bland election promises and expressed the pious hope that all parliamentarians could rise above partisanship.Canada's international role was discussed seventh, after the economy, health, caregivers for children and seniors, aboriginals, cities, and the environment. This shouldn't have been a surprise, given the modest role foreign affairs played the two pre-election debates of the party leaders. Under a section entitled role of pride and influence the the government said that in today's world, effective international engagement is needed to advance national aspirations, and then repeated its plans to release an international policy statement and invest more the military. The following day, an editorial cartoon the National Post captured the spirit of the speech by showing the child's cartoon figure Barney the Dinosaur sitting on a throne singing, alongside the prime minister, I love you, you love me.Two events, however, quickly made a mockery of this somnolent beginning for the government, which was 20 seats short of the majority that makes the passage of legislation so much easier, if not quite automatic. The first event was purely political. Despite the almost universal belief that the opposition parties had nothing to gain by forcing another election and hence would risk nothing to provoke one, Conservative leader Stephen Harper and Bloc Quebecois chief Gilles Duceppe responded to the throne speech with a dangerous game of brinkmanship. They put intense pressure on the government by forcing a vote on a Bloc amendment to the speech. A crisis was narrowly averted at the last moment through the intervention of New Brunswick's Conservative Premier Bernard Lord, who urged restraint.The second event, which exploded the government's face out of the blue the same day, meshes perfectly with this article's examination of the three cabinet ministers responsible for Canada's foreign and defence policy-Defence Minister Bill Graham, Foreign Affairs Minister Pierre Pettigrew and International Trade Minister Jim Peterson. Only four days earlier, the Department of National Defence had issued an upbeat press release about the transfer to the Canadian navy of the newly renamed Chicoutimi, the last of four aging diesel electric submarines purchased from the British navy. Graham said that the handover illustrates the progress we are making establishing a modern submarine fleet that will serve Canadians extremely well for the next 25 years. Despite the delays getting all four submarines to Canada, they represent a vital national asset. Now, it turned out, Chicoutimi had sent a distress signal from the coast of Ireland. News that began as an embarrassment would quickly turn into a tragedy.What became clear is that the government's hopes for a better-received foreign and defence policy than under former Prime Minister Jean Chretien-who was widely criticized both for the deterioration Canada-US relations and the country's modest defence capacity-were not going to be easily realized, even leaving aside potentially dangerous issues such as Canada's participation the United States' ballistic missile defence program. …

Smarter Cooperation in Canada-US Relations?

Veronica Kitchen is a PhD candidate at Brown University. Earlier versions of this paper were presented to the Association of Canadian Studies conference 9.11: Impact and Consequences for Canada and Canadians; the International Studies Association Annual Conference; and the Institut d'etudes internationales/Woodrow Wilson Center conference Quels choix pour le Canada?/What choices for Canada? The author would like to thank Peter Andreas and Jens Hainmueller for their helpful comments on early drafts.IN RESPONSE TO THE TERRORIST ATTACKS of September 2001 and the heightened attention paid to issues of border security, Canada and the United States drafted the smart border declaration in December 2001. The declaration and its accompanying 30-point action plan called for initiatives to ensure the secure flow of people and goods, secure infrastructure, and co-ordinate enforcement and information-sharing about these objectives.(1) The smart border declaration was centred on several strategies its drafters hoped would make it a success. It included policy, technical, and bureaucratic cooperation coupled with high-level political attention, and it was implemented across a defined issue area. By its second anniversary, most of the provisions of the smart border action plan had been implemented and the process was generally declared a success.(2)There were good reasons for Canadians and their government to push for the smart border declaration as a solution to ongoing border security concerns. The imperatives of the asymmetrical relationship, the traditional concern for maintaining Canada's sovereignty and policy independence, and the need to preserve a Canadian identity that is usually defined in opposition to the United States make smart cooperation on the model of the smart border declaration viable for Canada. In this article I explain why this smarter cooperation works for Canada, then argue that it may be fruitfully extended to other cooperative initiatives in North America.THE SMART MODEL OF COOPERATIONCanada and the United States share nearly 9000 km of border and almost 2 billion Canadian dollars in trade every day. About 86 percent of Canada's exports go to the United States, and about 25 percent of American exports travel to Canada, most of them by truck. Thus cross-border trade is a lifeline for both countries, though 40 percent of Canada's GDP depends on exports to the United States, while only 2.5 percent of American GDP depends on exports to Canada. Nevertheless, it is, as American Ambassador to Canada Paul Cellucci called it, Main Street North America.(3) Making the border work again after its brief disruption in the panic following the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks was a high priority for both countries.Immediately after the attacks, American customs officials entered Canada to make use of Canadian facilities when their own were overwhelmed by the search for terrorists. This sort of agency-to-agency cooperation during a crisis quickly escalated to political cooperation, with homeland security director Tom Ridge and chair of the public security and anti-terrorism cabinet committee John Manley taking the lead on addressing the need to come up with a border strategy. The smart border declaration was largely a Canadian document, drafted by the borders task force fo the Privy Council Office and finalized in consultation with American officials. The drafters structured the smart border declaration around three pillars: technical and policy cooperation; bureaucratic cooperation and high-level political attention; and implementation across a defined issue area.(4)Technical and policy cooperation aims to create mutual confidence in policies that are not necessarily identical. Where policies have common goals or are only different because they were written by different bureaucracies, they can be rewritten to be the same. However, smart cooperation recognizes that while there are many common interests between Canada and the United States, especially in the realm of security, there are legitimate reasons why policies might diverge. …

Smarter Cooperation in Canada-US Relations?

Smarter Cooperation in Canada-US Relations?

The North American Democratic Peace: Absence of War and Security Institution-Building in Canada-US Relations, 1867-1958

The North American Democratic Peace: Absence of War and Security Institution-Building in Canada-US Relations, 1867-1958

“Honey, are You Still Mad at Me? L've Changed, You Know…”

AMONG THE TROUBLESOME ISSUES Paul Martin will inherit upon settling in at 24 Sussex Drive will be relations with Washington. Indeed, these relations have been steadily going downhill since the autumn of 2000: political leaders limit themselves to trading cutting remarks; the disputes pile up; and the governments--if not the people themselves--seem to adhere to opposing philosophies and political values. To evoke personages dear to the hearts of 19th-century caricaturists, there are cracks in the warm and close friendship that united Uncle Sam and Miss Canada not so very long ago.Is it possible to restore the situation? Probably, and many commentators expect a great deal from the regime change in Ottawa(1)--and perhaps, even in Washington-- that should help clear the air. In theory, they are right. History tells us that the relations between the two countries can evolve very rapidly, given the climate of understanding between the political leaders.(2)Will this be the case once again? Will the discontent that has taken hold, as much in Washington as in Ottawa, dissipate as soon as Paul Martin takes over? What does the new prime minister intend to do to improve relations with the United States? Is this a sound strategy? In short, will Miss Canada be forgiven for her absence, when Uncle Sam straightened out Uncle Saddam?This article is divided into five sections. The first two serve to determine if the problems observed in the relations between the two governments are attributable to the personalities of the individuals or to unfortunate circumstances--thus isolated and short-lived--or if they are symptomatic of a basic problem, of a structural nature. The answer to this question is important since it enables us to evaluate the new prime minister's ability to effectively improve things. As wel shall see, there are signs that the causes are not limited to a clash of personalities, and that the wiggle room allotted to Paul Martin may be smaller than we believe. Expectations will have to be tempered.In the third section, Paul Martin's projects concerning relations with the United States are examined, while the fourth section is aimed at deciphering the strategy he intends to use in order to reach his objectives. Clearly aware of the enormous economic stakes involved in these relations, the new prime minister appears determined to turn the page and to improve his government's relations with the American administration. The final section is a critical examination of the strategy he will use, a main element that involves linking co-operation on security with trade matters. Such a strategy is not only risky, but may also prove ineffective. To conclude, this article will examine an alternative presently available to the new prime minister--simply to wait...SKIRMISHING ALONG THE 49TH PARALLELSince the autumn of 2000 (i.e., since the presidential campaign in the United States) relations between Ottawa and Washington seem to have gone from bad to worse. Or this is, at least, the perception of most observers and of public opinion.(3) Although this perception is probably correct, it is harder to accurately describe this situation and how relations ended up in this state.If the degradation in Canada-US relations is merely due to personality conflicts between the heads of the executive branches, differences in style, or again manoeuvring by a group dissatisfied with the political clientele of the leaders in power, then these are merely random events that might be forgotten in a changing of the guard in Ottawa and/or Washington. On the other hand, if the tension is due to structural transformations, then the situation would, in large measure, lie beyond the control and will of the political leaders, and could be more difficult to manage.To undertake this analysis, we must take certain things into consideration and distinguish problems of substance from those of form, localized problems from those that are structural. …

Sovereignty or Standard of Living?

THE BIG IDEA--deep or the NAFTA-plus agenda--is gathering force. Actively promoted by the same people who brought us free trade--Tom D'Aquino and the Canadian Council of Chief Executives--its proponents are busy lobbying governments on both sides of the border. The CD Howe Institute and other business-friendly think-tanks are releasing study after study. Even former prime minister Brian Mulroney has been resurrected from the politically dead, promoting a new Canada-US deal in both Washington and Ottawa.The agenda is being taken very seriously by the Federal Government. A recent House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee report called for active exploration of a NAFTA-plus arrangement. Canada-US relations are at the top of the agenda for the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade. Paul Martin has also indicated that rebuilding Canada-US relations would be one of his top priorities as the next prime minister, even though he has provided few details of where he wants to take us.So, what does the deep-integration crowd want? Above all, they want the holy grail of Canada-US trade relations: secure access to the US As with the FTA, the starting point of the new agenda is defensive and there is actually very little interest in the big idea in Washington. The big idea is supposed to capture their interest--a proposal designed to be so enticing that they cannot turn it down.There is a second reason why the big idea is defensive. Already complicated border procedures (because of rules of origin and regulatory differences) have been compounded by much tighter US security since 11 September. In addition, the FTA and the NAFTA have clearly not created a single market. The US still manages trade in its own interests when it wants to, as is evident with softwood lumber, wheat and, now, beef.For enhanced and more secure access to the US market, the crowd has put forward the big idea. What we are supposed to get is exemption from US countervail and anti-dumping laws, as well as far fewer border controls. What they are prepared to offer in return is what they think the US wants from Canada: much higher levels of co-operation in non-economic areas like defence, security and immigration. The US would also gain enhanced access to Canadian energy.Deep integration is not just an economic agenda; it is really about falling in line with the US from a position of weakness. In fact, the main argument is that we really have no choice. We have become too dependent on the US and, of course, our economy is heavily dependent on exports, some 90 per cent of which now go to the US. Some groups in Canada--the Canadian Alliance, the National Post--enthusiastically support deep integration because they agree with policies of US Republicans, in the George W. Bush mould. Others, the more pragmatic and less ideological crowd, which tends to dominate the public service and the Liberal Party, think we have little choice.It is interesting to note that Sylvia Ostry, former head of the economics department at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and certainly no raving leftist, recently argued that we have become too economically dependent on the US for our own good. This dependency could make it difficult to retain sovereignty in foreign and defence policy. She noted that US trade representative Robert Zoellick has said, quite clearly, that the US will expect its trade partners to be co-operative on the broader US agenda for the world. As Ostry noted, this runs totally against the basic principle of the multilateral post-war trading system, which upholds that countries should treat each other equally in terms of trade, regardless of their political differences. To her credit, Ostry said that it was time for even enthusiastic free traders like herself to rethink tight integration with the US and to consider how to reduce our dependency. …

"Honey, Are You Still Mad at Me? I've Changed, You Know...": Canada-Us Relations in a Post-Saddam/Post-Chrétien Era

"Honey, Are You Still Mad at Me? I've Changed, You Know...": Canada-Us Relations in a Post-Saddam/Post-Chrétien Era