Canada-United States Relations
| Author | Robert Bothwell |
| Published date | 01 March 2003 |
| Date | 01 March 2003 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/002070200305800104 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
ROBERT
BOTHWELL
Canada-United
States
relations
Options
for
the
1970s
FOR
THE
GOVERNMENT
OF PIERRE
ELLIOTT
TRUDEAU
in
the
1970s,
no
foreign
policy
issue
was
more
important,
or
more
elusive,
than
rela-
tions
with
the
United
States.
Previous
governments
had tried
to
tackle
that
thorny
relationship, most
recently
in
the
Merchant-Heeney
Report
of
1965
(named
for
the
two
diplomats
who wrote
it),
which
stimulated
more
heat
than
light when
it
suggested
that
'quiet
diploma-
cy'
was
the
best
way
to
deal
with
differences
between
the
two.
Prudently,
Trudeau's
white
paper,
Foreign
Policy
for
Canadians,
did
not
deal
systematically
with
relations
with the
United
States,
and
Mitchell
Sharp,
his
secretary
of
state
for
external
affairs,
was
left
to explain weak-
ly
that
the
United
States
was
so
omnipresent
in
the study
that
a
sepa-
rate
treatment
was
unnecessary.
Canadian
politicians
liked
to talk
of
Canadian-American
relations
as
if
they
were
shaped
by
Canada
alone.
The
reverse was
more
often
the
case,
although
American
initiatives
were
as
often
as
not
unconscious.
For
example,
in
the
mid-i
960s
Congress
set
out
to
amend long-stand-
ing
injustices
in
American
immigration
law.
The
revised
act
ended
dis-
crimination
against whole
areas
and,
therefore, whole
races.'
A
side-
Professor
of
history,
University
of
Toronto
I
James
T.
Patterson,
Grand
Expectations:
The
United States
1945-1974
(New
York:
Oxford
University
Press
1996), 577-9.
A
quota
of
120,000
was
established for
the
entire
western
hemisphere,
with
no
specific national
quotas
within that
number;
17o,ooo
were
to
be
admitted
from
the
rest of
the world,
which
in
the
196os
was
expected
to
be
mainly
southern
and
eastern
Europe.
INTERNATIONAL
JOURNAL
Winter 2002-2003
Robert
Bothwell
effect,
largely
unnoticed
in
Canada,
was
that
free
admission
of
Canadians
(among
other
North
and
South
Americans)
to
the
United
States
came
to
an
end.
Free
passage
of
emigrants,
which
predated
con-
federation,
suddenly
vanished,
and
Canada
for
the
foreseeable
future
would
be
treated
just
like
any
other
foreign
country.
Trudeau
was
less
influenced
by
the
United
States,
its
politics
or
its
values,
than
any
other twentieth-century
Canadian
prime
minister.
Attempts
to
get
him
to
pay
attention
to
contemporary
American phe-
nomena,
like
sport,
failed.
'The
only
American
media
he
bothered
fol-
lowing
was
American
movies,'
his
campaign manager
once
lamented.
2
(And
movie
stars:
Trudeau
did
date
Barbra
Streisand,
among
others.)
In any
case,
he
was
not
unduly
worried
about
American influence.
The
United
States
was
a
great
power,
and
great powers
had
their
interests,
including
the
security
of
their neighbourhood.
Canada
was
necessarily
affected;
that
was
a
fact
of
life.
Americans
might
have
been
reassured
by
the
fact
that
he
did
not
see
the
United
States
as
especially
malignant
-
except
that
he
extended
the
same
consideration
to
the
Soviet
Union.
The
Soviet
Union
was
a
great
power
like
the
United
States,
and,
like
the
United
States,
it
believed
that
its
sphere
of
influence
guaranteed
its
own
security.
That
explained,
though
it
did
not
entirely
excuse,
the
Soviet
invasion
of
Czechoslovakia
in
1968.
It
also
explained
the
West's
almost purely
symbolic
response.
The
strictly
limited
reaction
of
the
West
in
effect
recognized
that
what
the
Soviet
Union
did
behind
the
Iron
Curtain
was
primarily
its
own
affair.
Trudeau
visited
the
Soviet
Union
in
the
spring
of
1971.
There
was
little
of
substance
on
the
Canadian-Russian
agenda
to make
the
visit
memorable.
Certain
remarks by
Trudeau,
however,
were
memorable,
especially
his
public
discussion
of
the 'overwhelming
presence'
of
the
United
States
in
Canadian
life.
American
diplomats
winced.
So,
too,
did
Canada's
ambassador to
Moscow,
Robert
Ford,
for
whom
Trudeau's
statement
and
his
choice
of
words
were revealing:
'I
am
...
certain
that
it
was
a
psychological
lapse,
since
it
reflected
a
deep-seated
distrust
of
the
United
States
and
a
friendly
feeling
toward
the
Soviet
Union
on
the
part
of
the
prime
minister.
'3
2
Keith Davey,
quoted
in
J.L.
Granatstein
and
Robert
Bothwell,
Pirouette:
Pierre
Trudeau
and
Canadian
Foreign
Policy
(Toronto:
University
of
Toronto
Press
1991),
96.
3
Robert
Ford,
OurMon
in
Moscow:
A
Diplomat's
Reflections
on
the
Soviet
Union
(Toronto:
University
of
Toronto
Press
1989),
119.
66
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