I thought this post I had writen a while ago was appropriate considering our mutual long weekend of birthdays. Happy Birthday everyone on both sides of the 49th. Lets keep it an open border, eh.
Living next to the United States is a little like sleeping with an elephant. You always wonder if they will roll over on you.
P.E. Trudeau
When Pierre Trudeau, then Prime Minister of Canada, made that famous analogy it was during the height of the Viet Nam war. As a government and a country we refused to follow in lockstep with the American policy on suspected communist expansion. We maintained ties to Cuba (still do), the U.S.S.R. and were ahead of the Americans in visiting China. None of these independent foreign policy decisions served to make for the most friendly of relations between the two countries.
I have always been proud of Canada's willingness to steer its own course when it came to world affairs. Up until the first Gulf War we had always managed to represent ourselves as differing from our larger neighbour to the south. The primary role of our military was rescue missions and peacekeeping.
In fact it was a Canadian, Lester Pearson, who invented the concept of impartial troops intervening to separate hostile parties to ensure cease fire compliance. Somehow, somewhere this idea has fallen by the wayside, or at least out of fashion, being replaced by the more ominous sounding peace makers.
In the late eighties and early nineties our independence and integrity took a rather direct hit from a conservative government which idolized the Reagan administration. Under their helm deals were forged which effectively saw the whittling away of our few remaining sticks of sovereignty.
Foreign policy became one of the first victims (to give credit where credit is due, the sole exception to this was our willingness to keep pressure upon South Africa in face of both American and British apathy). When George Bush the 1st ascended and began his family's oil war against Iraq we said yes sir, what can we do sir?
For the first time since the Boer War of the 1900's, we were sending troops to fight someone else's war. Unlike Korea where we were part of a U.N. force, here we were simply party to an American war of aggression.
Aside from the damage this did to our reputation in the developing world, the worst result was that it wiped out the memory of thirty some years of independent foreign policy. Our participation in Gulf War 1 seemed to be the precedent ensuring a no questions asked compliance guarantee on our part in all future American adventures.
Article comments
1 - alpha
Fascinating post even though I still think of Canada as a frigid haven for dissidents, immigrants, expatrates, etc. My illusions were shattered but nicely.
If Canada has so changed and is so dis-trusted just think about the situation in Mexico.
We Americans make great neighbors!
Once on short wave from Mexico I listened to the CBC on some battlefield monument. It took me quite a while to realize the enemy they had memorialized as being fought off there was...us.
2 - gonzo marx
/golfclap
well said, gypsyman
not all Americans fit the sterotype in their attitudes towards Canada suggested by some of our media and the Shrub's administration
i, for one, am inordinately proud of our Brother to the North
one Question..i had thought Lake Baikal in Siberia was the largest body of fresh water on the planet? but i am a silly freak and might be having memory problems
you keep writing, i'll keep reading
nuff said?
Excelsior!
3 - nancy
Canada would be a wonderful place if you didn't have mosquitos big enough to fight off the 747s.
4 - gypsyman
It's not the mosquitos you need to worry about, its the black flies in June that can kill you.
I always thought of Lake Superior as the largest, but I could be wrong. Too many typos in this post, apologies all will fix now, but that should been bodies as in many lakes and rivers which are coveted as American dry out everywhere.
5 - John
Canada is a great country no matter what the occasional indifference between our two countries. Alpha's statement is correct in that Canada needs to keep a close eye on Mexico. They are essentially using immigration policies to avoid democratic and economic change for their people by dumping their poor at your doorstep.
6 - RJ
When George Bush the 1st ascended and began his family's oil war against Iraq we said yes sir, what can we do sir?
For the first time since the Boer War of the 1900's we were sending troops to fight someone else's war. Unlike Korea where we were part of a U.N. force, here we were simply party to an American war of aggression.
Yer off yer rocker...
7 - RJ
"in constant threat(including from our erstwhile allies who have managed to kill four of our soldiers in a "friendly fire" incident)"
Why do you put that in quotes? Do you honestly think those American pilots INTENTIONALLY killed those Canadian soldier?
The accidental killing of friendlies is just something that happens in war. It's terrible, but it has happened since the beginning of civilization.