Diefenbaker Government Research Articles

George Drew, the Law of the Sea, and the Diefenbaker Government, 1957-1963

ABSTRACT Scholarly analysis of John Diefenbaker’s government between 1957 and 1963 has focused heavily on Diefenbaker’s influence in the conduct of Canadian foreign policy. From the “renegade in power” to the “rogue Tory”, Diefenbaker frequently receives the primary credit or blame for determining Canada’s place in the wider world. This traditional evaluation, however, ignores the broad latitude often given to senior Canadian diplomats. Diefenbaker’s high commissioner to Britain, George Drew, played a particularly important role in shaping Anglo-Canadian relations. Building on his senior status within Progressive Conservative ranks, Drew proved resolute and unorthodox in advancing Canadian interests. A detailed case study of Drew’s efforts to secure a comprehensive international agreement on the law of the sea demonstrates his impact on Canadian foreign policy. Drew headed the Canadian delegation to two United Nations law of the sea conferences in 1958 and 1960 and vigorously pursued an international agreement delineating the width of the territorial sea eventually brokered after the Diefenbaker government left office in 1963.

Canada’s Global Villagers: CUSO in Development, 1961–1986, by Ruth Compton Brouwer

Ruth Compton Brouwer Canada's Global Villagers: CUSO in Development, 1961-1986 Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2013. 317pp., $95.00 (cloth) ISBN: 978-0774826037I am sure young Americans would learn a great deal in this country and it could be an important experience for them, Indian prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru remarked to Peace Corps Director Sargent Shriver in 1961. I hope, India's premier added, you and they will not be too disappointed if the Punjab, when they leave, is more or less the same as it was before they came.1 Nehru's quip about the impact of development efforts gives an indication of some of the cynicism surrounding Western involvement in what was once called the Third World, even at the height of the era of development. Indeed, 1961 saw the founding not just of the United States Peace Corps but also of the Canadian University Service Overseas. In Canada's Global Villagers, Ruth Compton Brouwer offers a useful and thought-provoking history of CUSO during its first quarter century. Drawing on the CUSO records at Library and Archives Canada, a number of other archival collections, and a wealth of interviews and first-hand accounts, Brouwer has written an excellent study of this organization. Her analysis, however, is not confined to an institutional history. Rather, much of the book examines the young, intrepid Canadians who set out to make the world a better place, or who at least became the point of contact between Canada and the developing world.Unlike the Peace Corps, which was crafted to be a tool of US foreign policy, CUSO was formed at arm's length from the Canadian government. Fittingly, then, Brouwer avoids a state-centric approach, looking not at policymakers in Ottawa and envoys in far-flung diplomatic missions but at the functioning of CUSO, its internal politics, and the experience of the volunteers who served abroad. Not that Ottawa is ignored. The book begins with a discussion of CUSO's founding on the basis of a number of university groups and then looks at the tentative links to the governments of John Diefenbaker, Lester Pearson, and Pierre Trudeau, prime ministers all interested in aiding under-developed nations. Spurned by the Diefenbaker government, CUSO found more support from Pearson and then from Trudeau, although not without bunfights over precious funding. The organization also engaged in major lobbying efforts to see more government-sponsored development aid, and drew upon cross-party support to keep its own lifeline intact.CUSO volunteers generally maintained their distance from Canadian diplomatic missions while in-country, but the organization itself had an interesting relationship with the government as a major recipient of state funding. CUSO, in fact, survived when other government-funded development programs did not: Service universitaire canadien outre-mer (SUCO), its French-Canadian equivalent, and the Company of Young Canadians, meant to promote domestic development, were both starved of funding after veering into radicalism. CUSO was not free of politicization, of course. It was, after all, a youth organization functioning in an era not just of youth revolt but also of Third World revolt against the West. Brouwer captures the heady idealism of the first groups of volunteers and traces the growing realism of later volunteers, who were much more conscious of the limited effects of their efforts. …

“Tossing a Match into Dry Hay”: Nuclear Weapons and the Crisis in U.S.-Canadian Relations, 1962–1963

Newly declassified archival sources allow a reassessment of U.S.-Canadian diplomacy during the final months of John Diefenbaker's government concerning Canada's prospective acquisition of nuclear weapons in the wake of the October 1962 Cuban missile crisis. Scholars have traditionally argued that Canadian proposals for U.S. nuclear warheads to be supplied to Canada after the outbreak of an international emergency were unworkable. Diefenbaker has been deemed primarily responsible for his government's collapse after personally fumbling the bilateral nuclear weapons talks. Drawing on previously unavailable primary documents, this article shows that the U.S. decision to reject Ottawa's proposals was rooted in political, not military, imperatives. The article also demonstrates that U.S. officials waged a concerted campaign to undermine the Canadian government, most notably through the State Department's unprecedented public rebuke of Diefenbaker's nuclear weapons policy in late-January 1963.

“A Very Careful Balance:” The 1961 Triangular Agreement and the Conduct of Canadian–American Relations

This analysis examines the negotiation of a critical 1961 defence production agreement between Canada and the United States. Through this triangular transaction, the United States transferred American F-101 interceptors to Canadian ownership and paid $150 million to procure F-104 fighters in Canada. In return, Canada contributed $50 million to the F-104 project and assumed the significant costs of operating stations in the Pinetree radar line. Complex diplomatic discussions led to the conclusion of this deal. On the Canadian side, economic stagnation and the controversial cancellation of the Avro Arrow interceptor forced Prime Minister John Diefenbaker's government to seek an arrangement that would revive Canada's troubled aircraft industry whilst minimising nationalist opposition to the acquisition of American-built interceptors. The successive American administrations of Dwight Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy, on the other hand, were guided by the military imperative of transferring F-101 aircraft to allow Canada to fulfil its continental air defence commitments and the political consideration of using the triangular arrangement as a cure-all for the many irritants plaguing the Canadian–American relationship. Ultimately, the successful conclusion of the agreement demonstrates the complexity of bilateral relations during the Cold War and provides a compelling case study of the inter-relation of political, military, and economic factors influencing the conduct of foreign affairs between close allies.

Technology and Nationalism (review)

Reviewed by: Technology and Nationalism Edward Andrew (bio) Marco Adria. Technology and Nationalism. McGill-Queen’s University Press. viii, 208. $90.00, $29.95 Marco Adria teaches communications and technology at the University of Alberta and has written an interesting book on his subject from the perspective of his region. After surveying the academic literature on nationalism, Adria focuses on the missile crisis of 1962, when the Diefenbaker government refused to acquiesce in the demand of the Kennedy government to have unlimited access for American bombers armed with nuclear weapons to fly over Canadian airspace during the Cuban Missile Crisis. George Grant’s defence of Diefenbaker, coupled with his opposition to the Vietnam War, occasioned Grant’s Lament for a Nation, which stimulated thought about the meaning and possibility of nationalism in Canada. Adria does not discuss Grant’s view that liberalism is the doctrine most suitable to technological and imperial expansion but cites Ramsay Cook and Jill Vickers saying that Grant’s defence of Diefenbaker was really a defence of ‘Anglo-Saxon civilization’ and omits Grant’s central criticism of Diefenbaker – namely, that ‘Canada was predicated on the rights of nations as well as on the rights of individuals’ and that Diefenbaker’s failure to see this fact about the multinational state of Canada ‘showed himself to be a liberal rather than a conservative.’ To be sure, Grant’s conservatism was the antithesis of the present government, formed from the right-wing Albertan Reform and Canadian Alliance parties. Grant was opposed to the National Energy Policy providing cheaper energy to central Canadians at the [End Page 671] expense of Albertans, but the economic nationalism of the Trudeau years perhaps had its source in the Liberal Party being stung by Grant’s claim that it had transformed Canada into a branch plant of the United States. Readers might consult Darin Barney’s Prometheus Wired (2000), a source surprisingly absent in Adria’s bibliography, to find out why Grant accepted Heidegger’s view we are used by technology – used up as human resources, like natural resources – not independent of technology to use it as we will. Adria’s view that ‘Heidegger’s philosophic hermeneutics was for Grant a means through which the timeless truths and values of the world could be viewed’ is preposterous, as is manifest in Dennis Lee’s ‘Grant’s Impasse’ in By Loving Our Own (1990). Lee demonstrated why Grant found Heidegger’s thorough historicism so powerful that any access to eternity was problematic, and both Heidegger and Grant thought that to refer to art, philosophy, and religion as values is ‘subjectivizing’ of what is worthy of our attention and robs the highest of human endeavours of their dignity. Adria has interesting chapters on the tension between regionalism and nationalism in Canada and on the role of radio in developing national and regional identities. Albertans have an identity which is distinctive but is not national, like that of the Québécois. He compares Ned Corbett’s promotion of both an educated citizenry and Canadian nationalism in CKUA in Alberta and the CBC with William Aberhart’s broadcasting of his Prophetic Bible Institute, which promoted Social Credit and Albertans’ awareness that they were ripped off by eastern financial institutions. Although Adria distinguishes deliberative democracy and an educative function of radio and television from the packaging of prejudices to please an audience that does not want to be provoked to thought (as talk radio or in Fox or Sun News), and although he recognizes that Corbett was contemptuous of Aberhart’s bombast, Adria finds much in common between Corbett’s and Aberhart’s methods and objectives. Adria concludes with a stimulating chapter on the Internet and the future. He sees ‘the hyperpluralistic and fragmented’ character of Internet technologies as countering nationalism with both global and local concerns, linking new Canadians with the cultures of their homelands and the diaspora communities around the world, and thus thinks the Internet particularly suits the Canadian polity with the divergent attachments and loyalties of its citizens. Canada is an increasingly non-violent and tolerant society. As one watches the youth texting one another across dinner tables, one imagines that, for them, nothing...

The Canadian Strategic Debate of the Early 1960s

Ever since Canada emerged as a distinct and active international actor in the immediate post- World War II period there has been a certain schizophrenic character associated with the debates about the country's inherently proper role in the world. This has especially been the case in the context of Ottawa's relations with Washington, particularly on broad military strategic issues. Should Canada closely commit itself to collective western defence under US leadership or should it focus on broad multilateral collective security, eschewing close military and political alignment with America? Perhaps no one caught this better than Henry Kissinger when he observed that instinct in favor of the common defense conflicted with the temptation to stay above the battle as a kind of international arbiter.1These two opposing conceptions of what ought to be the Canadian way came to the fore in the early 19605, when, after more than a decade of Cold War and amid the attempts the Diefenbaker government to alter the approach of the previous Liberal governments, a debate emerged over the nature of Canadian foreign and defence policy. At the heart of this intellectual ferment was the issue of how much Canada needed to adapt its policies to changes in the overall strategic namely the development of multi-megaton thermonuclear weapons the United States and the Soviet Union and the emergence of the newly decolonized nations of Africa and Asia. Indeed, many Canadian intellectuals and academics feared that the Canadian approach to international affairs had become increasingly stale and even outmoded. The result was that there was much discussion about whether there were any alternatives available to Canada.Two of the most important works in this period were James Macdonald Minifie's Peacemaker or Powder-Monkey: Role in a Revolutionary World, published in 1960, and Canada's long-term strategic situation, which was written Robert J. Sutherland for International Journal in 1902.a Minifie, the Washington correspondent for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, argued that Canada should seize the opportunity to become a neutral power and fulfil its potential as a force for good in the world. On the other hand, Sutherland, an official with the Defence Research Board, defended the status quo, at least partially in response to Minifie, and argued that policies served national interest. These works, therefore, symbolized this search for alternatives and the effort to defend and justify the status quo that was so evident during this debate. Moreover, many of the arguments made Minifie and Sutherland would foreshadow subsequent and current debates over Canadian foreign and defence policy.THE ALTERNATIVEMinifie, reflecting a small but not entirely marginal body of Canadian public and elite opinion, argued passionately that Canada had the potential to play an increasingly important role in world affairs. In his mind, the onset of decolonization had created upheaval that cannot be directed military alliances or brought to order dropping atomic bombs.... If it is to be channelled into democratic patterns it must have enlightened and demonstrably selfless leadership from powers innocent of designs of world paramountcy (2). Minifie argued that Canada could fulfil this role because [n]obody fears Canada, since it is without territorial ambitions. Nobody harbours resentment against Canada, because it has never held sovereign control over an alien people.3 Nobody suspects Canada of coveting natural resources - it has plenty of its own (2-3). Canada also had other advantages, including its history of resolving internal disputes through negotiation and its competence in foreign affairs as demonstrated its efforts to resolve the Suez Crisis in 1956 (3).He then argues that these superb advantages, which are potentially of inestimable and lasting strength, are cancelled out close ties with the United States or, as he puts it, by the fact that Canada is still walking with the Devil (3). …

Dealing in Black and White: The Diefenbaker Government and the Cold War in South Asia 1957–1963

Abstract: This article examines how religious and cultural stereotypes of India and Pakistan affected the perceptions and attitudes of Canadian policy-makers and the Diefenbaker government from 1957 to 1963. Canadian policy-makers initially believed that India's elites shared numerous commonalities with the West that were rooted in a shared language and a similar judicial and democratic parliamentary system. Through these ‘commonalities’ officials believed that India would align with the West as the Cold War intensified. Such assumptions proved to be ill-considered. The Indian government practised a doctrine of non-alignment in the 1950s, and senior Canadian officials regarded this as hypocritical and even anti-Western. By contrast, Pakistan aligned with the West and raised its anti-communist rhetoric. A growing pool of Canadian officials looked to Islam, Hinduism, and cultural stereotypes to explain why Pakistan differed from India and perceived the threat of communism in the same way as the West. These officials also re-evaluated the importance Ottawa placed on ties with New Delhi. The election of Prime Minister John Diefenbaker in June 1957 hastened this trend. Diefenbaker viewed communism in binary terms and concluded that, unlike India, Pakistan was on the ‘right side’ in the Cold War. The Diefenbaker era saw Ottawa relegate India to the periphery of its foreign policy interests and bilateral relations with Pakistan at their apogee.

Dealing in Black and White: The Diefenbaker Government and the Cold War in South Asia 1957-1963

This article examines how religious and cultural stereotypes of India and Pakistan affected the perceptions and attitudes of Canadian policy-makers and the Diefenbaker government from 1957 to 1963. Canadian policy-makers initially believed that India's elites shared numerous commonalities with the West that were rooted in a shared language and a similar judicial and democratic parliamentary system. Through these 'commonalities' officials believed that India would align with the West as the Cold War intensified. Such assumptions proved to be ill-considered. The Indian government practised a doctrine of non-alignment in the 1950s, and senior Canadian officials regarded this as hypocritical and even anti-Western. By contrast, Pakistan aligned with the West and raised its anticommunist rhetoric. A growing pool of Canadian officials looked to Islam, Hinduism, and cultural stereotypes to explain why Pakistan differed from India and perceived the threat of communism in the same way as the West. These officials also re-evaluated the importance Ottawa placed on ties with New Delhi. The election of Prime Minister John Diefenbaker in June 1957 hastened this trend. Diefenbaker viewed communism in binary terms and concluded that, unlike India, Pakistan was on the 'right side' in the Cold War. The Diefenbaker era saw Ottawa relegate India to the periphery of its foreign policy interests and bilateral relations with Pakistan at their apogee. Cet article examine comment les stéréotypes religieux et culturels envers l'Inde et le Pakistan influencèrent les perceptions et les attitudes des décideurs politiques canadiens et du gouvernement Diefenbaker entre 1957 et 1963. Les décideurs politiques canadiens crurent d'abord que les élites indiennes avaient avec l'Occident plusieurs traits communs enracinés dans une langue partagée et des systèmes parlementaire et juridique semblables. En raison de ces traits communs, le gouvernement pensa que l'Inde, avec l'intensification de la guerre froide, s'alignerait sur l'Occident. Cette supposition s'avéra malheureuse. Le gouvernement indien appliqua dans les années 1950 la doctrine du non-alignement, ce que le gouvernement canadien jugea hypocrite et même antioccidental. Par comparaison, le Pakistan s'aligna sur l'Ouest et accentua sa rhétorique anticommuniste. Les agents du gouvernement canadien furent nombreux à se tourner vers l'islam, l'hindouisme et les stéréotypes culturels pour expliquer pourquoi le Pakistan, contrairement à l'Inde, percevait la menace communiste comme les Occidentaux. Ces agents réévaluèrent aussi l'importance qu'Ottawa accordait à ses liens avec New Delhi. Cette tendance s'accéléra avec l'élection du premier ministre John Diefenbaker en juin 1957. Diefenbaker, qui voyait le communisme en termes binaires, conclut que le Pakistan, à la différence de l'Inde, logeait du « bon côté » dans la guerre froide. Sous Diefenbaker, le Canada relégua l'Inde à la périphérie de ses intérêts en politique étrangè re et porta ses relations bilatérales avec le Pakistan à leur apogée.

Just West of Neutral: Canadian "Objectivity" and Peacekeeping during the Congo Crisis, 1960-61

This article assesses the significance of Canada's role in the Opération des Nations Unies au Congo (ONUC) and, more generally, Canada's foreign policy during the early months of the Congo crisis. It argues that Prime Minister John Diefenbaker's government pursued a policy that recognized the importance of achieving Western objectives in the Congo but at the same time eschewed the strident Cold War views of some North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) allies. The Canadian government was forced to weigh the importance of sometimes-conflicting foreign policy considerations when developing policy during the Congo crisis, and this ultimately lead to an unwillingness to be seen to be pursuing a concerted NATO approach to the Congo's tribulations. This would suggest recent interpretations that portray Canadian participation in ONUC as an example of how Canada's peacekeeping policy primarily served Western, Cold War objectives might not be entirely correct.

The Value of a "Coyne": The Diefenbaker Government and the 1961 Coyne Affair.

This study explores the political aspects of the 1961 Coyne Affair, which saw the Governor of the Bank of Canada, James Coyne, promote restrictionist economic policies that were at odds with the expansionist monetary approach of the Diefenbaker government. The situation was complicated by unclear governmental responsibilities regarding the Bank and a contentious pension issue, leading to the Progressive Conservative cabinet’s request for the governor’s resignation, a demand he refused. The Affair became a public controversy involving opposition parties and the Canadian media, and personal animosities clouded the judgment of both the Tory government, led by Prime Minister John Diefenbaker and Minister of Finance Donald Fleming, and Coyne. However, the Progressive Conservative’s attempt to force Coyne’s resignation was ultimately justified due to his contrary economic policies and the extent to which he overstepped his position as governor and engaged in political machinations. The Coyne Affair led to the restructuring of the relationship between the Bank and the federal government and contributed to the fall of the Diefenbaker government, Senate reform, and economic nationalism.

The Politicians and the “Pearsonalities”: The Diefenbaker Government and the Conduct of Canadian External Relations

Après vingt-deux ans de règne Libéral, les Conservateurs, sous John Diefenbaker, prirent le pouvoir en 1957. Ils héritèrent d'un Ministère les affaires extérieures qui avait été fortement influencé par les attitudes, les techniques et la personnalité du leader Libéral d'alors, Lester Pearson. Diefenbaker fut profondément méfiant à l'égard du présumé caractère partisan du ministère, et inquiet de l'influence que les protégés de Pearson, les Pearsonalities. Malgré son inexpérience, le premier ministre assuma d'abord la responsabilité du portefeuille, afin d'en amorcer la transformation. Même après la nomination de Sidney Smith au poste de secrétaire d'Etat, Diefenbaker continua d'être intéressé aux affaires du ministère, dont il s'occupait activement. Après la décès inattendu de Smith en 1959, le portefeuille fut confié à Howard Green, auquel le premier ministre accordait une plus grande confiance. L'auteur affirme que, dans l'ensemble, Green réussit à maintenir une saine indépendance face au contrôle de ses hauts fonctionnaires. S'ils n hésitaient pas à présenter leurs propres initiatives - l'aide à l'Afrique francophone est citée en exemple - les hauts fonctionnaires semblent avoir prudemment évité tout élément partisan. Au même moment, l'intérêt sélectif mais prononcé que le premier ministre portait à certains aspects de la politique étrangère fit que les décisions sur ces questions furent parfois soustraites à l'influence du ministère. Dans des questions telles l'appartenance de l'Afrique du Sud au Commonwealth et les relations avec l'Union soviétique, les opinions et les actions du premier ministre pouvaient avoir un effet décisif. Dans des questions de politique, comme l'entrée de la Grande Bretagne à la CEE, les fonctionnaires des Affaires extérieures devaient tenir compte d'une autre influence puissante: Vintervention parfois indépendante du Haut commissaire du Canada à Londres, George Drew, qui était très respecté et qui avait accès direct au premier ministre. Cette concurrence entre les centre du pouvoir portait parfois à confusion; le meilleur exemple en est peut-être la façon dont le gouvernement a mené le débat sur les armes nucléaires. Ce débat a contribué à la démission du gouvernement et à sa subséquente défaite électorale. Les questions de politique étrangère n'ont pas dominé l'élection, mais le réputation d'indécision du gouvernement découlait largement de sa conduite en matière d'affaires extérieures. En ce sens, la façon dont Diefenbaker s'occupa des décisions de politique étrangère influença profondément l'élection.

Canada and the Financing of the United Nations Emergency Force, 1957-1963

The current financial crisis of the United Nations is generally traced to the peacekeeping mission in the Congo and its price tag. This paper proposes that the roots of financial unrest lie rather as early as 1956, in the financing of the United Nations Emergency Force. Peacekeeping funding quickly became a litmus test of support for the United Nations - a sign of policy beyond platitudes. In Canada, the political popularity of peacekeeping required that the Diefenbaker government play an active role in trying to resolve the UN's financial predicament. However, despite the advantages that UNEF and peacekeeping brought to an unstable world, there was in fact little that Canada or the United Nations could do to force individual nations to financially support collective UN policies.

Canadian Editorial Opinion and the 1963 Nuclear Weapon Acquisition Debate

Introduction and Historical Context Canadians are currently engaged in a heated debate over the nature of their country's external policies, particularly related to continental defense arrangements with the United States. However, concer over such issues is not new. Past, present, and likely future debates over Canada's possible participation in American missile defense projects, for example, well illustrate the problem Canada faces when evolving strategic environments produce changes in American national security doctrine. At various stages throughout the history of Canada-U.S. relations, American security requirements have forced Ottawa to re-evaluate its military/security role in the world, in the process sparking national debates involving participants from the political elite to the average citizen. The debates engendered through policy revision have become even more fraught because Canadian concerns over national sovereignty are also raised. Anti-American sentiment, which invariably accompanies the sovereignty issue, makes the challenge before policy-makers daunting indeed. In such cases, Canadian officials seek to formulate policy that satisfies Washington, that is not perceived as destabilizing by other members of the international community, and also that assuages domestic anxiety about the unavoidable relationship with the U.S. During the Cold War, these challenges resulted in a contest between two often incompatible motives among Canadian policy-makers: to integrate militarily with the United States in the confrontation with the Soviet Union, and to formulate foreign and defense policies which decreased global tension and promoted rapprochement between East and West. This paper focuses on one such instance--the acquisition of American nuclear warheads by Canadian forces in the early 1960s and the accompanying debate that polarized Canadian society. In Canada, as elsewhere in the Western Alliance, the fear of nuclear war fluctuated as international relations shifted between periods of confrontation and compromise. During periods of tension, national debates over nuclear weapons, the arms race, and arms control and disarmament negotiations intensified; debate was most fervent when questions arose about Canada's contribution to the Western Alliance's nuclear deterrent. When the U.S. requested that Canada's armed forces assume nuclear roles in the late 1950s, for instance, a passionate and divisive debate ensued, becoming by early 1963 one of the most contentious foreign and defense policy discussions in the nation's history. Between January and March 1963, the question of whether Canada would acquire nuclear weapons for its armed forces as part of its commitment to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the North American Air Defense Command (NORAD) dominated political debate and discourse. Historians and political scientists have demonstrated how this issue polarized various groups in Canadian society from the political elite to the average voter. (2) This polarization produced serious consequences. Some scholars have concluded that the divisive public debate over nuclear weapons played a significant role in the Diefenbaker government's indecision and ultimate failure to develop a clear nuclear policy. (3) Scholars have not, however, analyzed the national print media, the principal arena in which the nuclear debate was fought. What analysis exists is minimal, focusing on a few national publications. Worse, the conclusions are misleading, arguing that the print media indeed supported a nuclear role. (4) In fact, editorial opinion was much more complex. An examination of twelve major Canadian newspapers highlights a sharply divided debate, with some publications in favor of a Canadian contribution to the Western nuclear deterrent and others adamantly opposed. (5) At the same time, while the existing scholarship acknowledges that a national debate occurred over nuclear weapons in the early 1960s, the arguments used to support each side have not been closely examined. …

Voting Behaviour and the Outcome of the 1979 Federal Election: The Impact of Leaders and Issues

Given the Liberal party's dominant position in Canadian federal politics, it has been extremely difficult for the Progressive Conservatives to effect an electoral breakthrough and win enough parliamentary seats to form a government. In this century, the Conservatives have been in power for only 22 years. The last time the party formed a majority government was in the spectacular Diefenbaker victory of 1958 which gave the Conservatives 208 of 265 seats. After the demise of the Diefenbaker government in 1963, the Conservatives languished in opposition until 1979 when they won a plurality of seats and Joe Clark formed his short-lived government. It is the election of 1979 which provides the focus of analysis in this article, and especially the success of the Conservatives in supplanting the Liberals, although not with a majority government.

Did He Fall or was He Pushed? The Kennedy Administration and the Collapse of the Diefenbaker Government

Did He Fall or was He Pushed? The Kennedy Administration and the Collapse of the Diefenbaker Government

Canada and the European Community: The New Policy

O N July 6, 1976, a ' Framework Agreement for Commercial and Economic Co-operation was signed by representatives of Canada and the European Community.2 This agreement is the culmination of a five-year diplomatic effort by the Canadian government, an effort which with its prime ministerial visits to Western Europe and countless other diplomatic contacts in Ottawa, New York, Washington and the European capitals, is unique in the history of Canadian foreign policy. It is all the more surprising when contrasted with Canada's suspicious, at times hostile, policy during the European Community's first ten years, a policy which ranged from the outright opposition of the Diefenbaker government, when Britain first applied to join, to the Pearson administration's brief boycott of the Kennedy Round negotiations when the EEC refused to modify its agricultural policy. After a brief summary of the developments that led to the signature of the Framework Agreement, this article will first assess the factors that led to the new Canadian policy and secondly evaluate the effectiveness of the means which Canadian policy-makers used in its implementation.

Before the Review

The first two of these books complete and carry forward the Canada in World Affairs series to April 1963, the end of the Dief enbaker government. (The volume by Richard A. Preston, covering the period 1959-61, was published out of sequence in 1965.) The curiously titled third book is the sequel, covering the life of the Pearson government, to journalist Newman's controversial and successful Renegade in Power: The Dief enbaker Years; as the book's dust-jacket indicates Mr. Newman is already working on a history of the Trudeau period, it appears his instant histories of successive Canadian governments have come to resemble the ciia series as a standard, unofficial, serial account of Canadian political affairs. Of the three, only Professor Lyon's book fully measures up to one's legitimate expectations. Professor Lloyd's volume1 covers the first two of the Diefenbaker period, from June 1957 to the naming of Howard Green as secretary of state for external affairs in June 1959. For three months each at the beginning and at the end of this period, Mr. Dief enbaker himself held the External Affairs portfolio; for the eighteen months in between, it was held by Sidney Smith. Salient international political events during the period were the launching of the first Sputnik in October 1957 and the nato heads of government meeting which authorized the establishment of nuclear stockpiles in Europe for joint, allied use but under American custody in December 1957. For Canada, the period was marked by momentous developments in defence policy: the formation of norad; the cancellation of the Arrow high-performance aircraft; the selection of weapons and roles for Canadian forces in North America and Europe entailed the acquisition of nuclear warheads. The theme of the book is that Canada in 1957 had at least as much international influence as at any time in its history and this influence began to decline during the next two years (p. 245), not so much because of mistakes of the Diefenbaker government as because of external factors. The change of governments in 1957 was significant in this regard mainly in revealing the degree to which Canadian influence had depended on Mr. Pearson's personal prestige, rather than on more permanent factors. Thus, any successor government, not only one led by Mr. Diefenbaker, would have had to accept a diminution in Canada's international influence. Professor Lloyd makes no general evaluation of the government's international performance during the period, but his account suggests no serious criticisms. Indeed, he puts forward, without embracing it, an original defence of the government's controversial postponement of a decision on nuclear weapons: it gained time until CanadianAmerican relations were less sensitive than in 1957-8 and were thus

Canada and the ICEM

As a country built on immigration, it seems paradoxical that Canada has withdrawn from the Intergovernmental Committee for European Migration (ICEM) on December 31, 1962. A charter member of this organization, which was established in 1951 to cope with two particular problems overpopulation in Western Europe, and the residue of the refugee problem remaining after the liquidation of the International Refugee Organization Canada has contributed in experience to ICEM and has also gained from participation in it. What then is its reason for withdrawal, and what impact can its resignation be expected to have both on the ICEM and on Canadian immigration policies? That the decision to withdraw from ICEM was made solely by the Diefenbaker government, came out clearly in two exchanges in Parliament in November, 1962. In response to Liberal questions on November 1 and 13, the government justified its decision on two grounds: the Canadian preference for relying on bilateral arrangements and on Canada's own immigration facilities; and the cost of participation in ICEM which Mr. Howard Green, the Secretary of State for External Affairs, suggested was high in relation to Canada's use of ICEM's services. Maintaining that financial considerations were not the primary reason for Canada's withdrawal he declared that it had become increasingly difficult to justify paying such a price for an organization of marginal use to Canada. Beyond this, the decision was motivated by the Canadian government's lack of belief that national migration requires or justifies by itself the existence of an international agency particularly when it was apparent that the European economy was now able to absorb most of what was formerly its surplus population, and the refugee problem in Europe had been substantially reduced. To some degree, these arguments might appear to be justified. There is no doubt but that the remarkable economic development within Western Europe has resulted in transforming a situation marked by overpopulation into one in which there is persistent and growing demand for skilled and semi-skilled labour. Moreover, the freer movement of persons within the Common Market area means that in place of seeking outlets for skills abroad, Western Europeans are far more likely to follow the pattern so characteristic of the United