Canadian-American Relations - Essay Example

Dixit Page 7 Satyaprkash Dixit Satyaprkash Dixit Academia research August 28, 2007 Topic: Post second world war Canada-U.S relations. Despite its great size, Canada is one the most sparsely populated countries of the world. Sharing its long border with the United States, Canada has long been indulged in its relations with the U.S over a span of two centuries, sharing a British colonial heritage and leading to the eventual development of one of the most successful international relationships in the modern world. The aftermath of the Second World War has seen a strong union between the two countries on all grounds. After the initial conflicts that included a few American invasions on Canada, the two countries have since then been allies. "Geography has made us neighbors. History has made us friends. Economics has made us partners. And necessity has made us allies. Those whom nature hath so joined together, let no man put asunder" (U.S. President John F. Kennedy).The cold war further strengthened the friendship between the two nations. Sharing the longest border, the two nations although face modern difficulties such as immigration, environmental concerns, trade disputes and many other issues, the two countries have had significant interoperability within the defense sphere and are today the world's largest trading partners. The United States and Canada expanded their formal military links at the operational level in the post world war period. The PJBD dealt with the political aspects of the defense relationships. A new body, the Military Cooperation Committee (MCC), was instituted to manage joint military planning between the American and the Canadian forces. Careful of surprise attacks after Pearl Harbor and concerned about the power of an increasingly hostile Soviet Union, American and Canadian defense officials used the bi-national planning structure of the MCC to set up the first joint continental defense initiative in 1946 called the Basic Security Plan (BSP). The Canadian Department of External Affairs (DEA) objected to the fact that it was denied access to the BSP working group by reason of its purported secrecy. The BSP was approved by both the United States and Canada in spite of these reservations. The PJBD and the MCC established a precedent of formal relations between Canada and the United States, providing for the coordinated defense of the continent. In 1949, Canada, the United States and their European allies formed the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Canada and the United States were accorded their own Canada-US Regional Planning Group (CUSRPG) to look over the defense of North America within the larger NATO structure. American planners were eager to get on with this new undertaking. But the Canadian government of Louis St. Laurent was hesitant. At issue for the Prime Minister and his Minister of Defense, Brook Claxton, were the implied costs and sovereignty infringements of a continental air defense expansion. The St. Laurent Liberals had experienced first-hand the American presence in Canada during the Second World War. Any suggestion by the United States of grander defense mechanisms invoked images of American soldiers on Canadian soil - and a corresponding loss of sovereignty. The Canadian military was seen to take a very different perspective. The Chiefs of Staff argued that the American concerns and recommendations were legitimate and Canada's involvement was absolutely indispensable. After the detonation of a massive thermonuclear device by the Soviet Union in 1953, the Canadian military officials implored Claxton and St. Laurent to reconsider their cautious approach. Ultimately, Claxton recognized that Washington's steadfastness left Ottawa with hardly any option. The geography of North America and the nature of Canada-US relations were such that Canadian involvement in an improved continental air defense system was pretty much inevitable. Canadian political leaders reasoned that securing Canadian interests could be better achieved by negotiating a favorable regime structure with the United States. U.S. defense arrangements with Canada are more extensive compared to with any other country. The Permanent Joint Board of Defense, established in 1940 provides policy-level consultation on bilateral defense and military matters. Canada and the U.S share the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) mutual security commitments. Further, U.S and Canadian military forces have cooperated since 1958 on continental air defense within the framework of the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD). An active military exchange program exists between the two countries, under which the Canadian Forces personnel have long been involved in Iraq. Moreover, interoperability with the American armed forces has been a guiding principle of Canadian military force structuring and doctrine since the end of the Cold War. Canadian navy frigates, for instance, integrate seamlessly into the U.S carrier battle groups. War in Afghanistan was a crucial juncture in the Canada-U.S relationships. The aftermath of the September 11th attacks saw the Canadian forces join the U.S army in Afghanistan. . A Canadian pilot attacked the American forces leading to the death of a few American soldiers. The matter was later solved when Canadian forces joined the multinational coalition in 'Operation Anaconda' in January 2002. Canada has also deployed its naval forces in the Persian Gulf since 1991 in support of the UN Gulf Multinational Interdiction Forces. The Canadian Embassy in Washington, maintains a public relations web site called the CanadianAlly.com, that intends to give the American citizens a better sense of the scope of Canada's role in North American and Global Security and the War on Terror. The trans-border environmental disputes have been major issues in the context of the U.S-Canada bilateral relationships. A principal instrument of this cooperation is the International Joint Commission (IJC) that was established as a part of the Boundary Waters Treaty in 1909 I order to resolve the differences and to promote international cooperation on boundary waters. The Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement of 1972 is another historic example of joint cooperation in controlling trans-border water pollution issues. Recently, the Devil's Lake Outlet, a project instituted by North Dakota, has angered Manitobans who fear that their water may soon get polluted as a result of the project. The two governments also consult semi-annually on the matters of air pollution. Both the countries have made substantial progress in coordinating and implementing their acid rain control programs and have signed an annex on ground level ozone in 2000, under the Air Quality Agreement of 1991. Despite such co operations, trans-border air pollution remains an issue, particularly in the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence watershed during the summer. The main sources of the pollution are the coal fired power stations, most of them located in the Midwest US. As the current legislation allows the disposal of sewage into the Pacific Ocean, there have been disputes over the issue as well. Canada, although has ratified the Kyoto protocol, has not actually implemented the same that basically deals with the emission of greenhouse gases. Yet after the ratification, the internal politics and other factors inside the Canadian government have disallowed Canada to enforce the norms. This has lead to various disputes with the U.S and also inside the government. Canada and the United States are the world's largest trading companions, with huge quantities of goods and people flowing across the border each year. Since the Canadian-American Free Trade Agreement in 1987, there have been no tariffs on most goods passed between the two countries. With such a massive trading relationship, trade disputes between the two countries are frequent and inevitable. American officials have placed ongoing tariffs on Canadian softwood lumber despite losing various appeals placed by Canada in the NAFTA and WTO panels. The softwood lumber dispute remains a growing issue between the two countries, leading to a gradual degradation in trade relationships on either sides of the border. Other notable disputes include the Canadian Wheat Board, and Canadian cultural "restrictions" on magazines and television (See CRTC, CBC and the National Film Board of Canada). Canadians have criticized things such as the ban on beef, since a case of the famous Mad Cow disease that was discovered in 2003 with cows from United States of America (and a few subsequent cases). The high American agricultural subsidies have also been matters of disappointment for the Canadians. Concerns in Canada also run pretty high over aspects of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) such as Chapter 11, which many believed, made it difficult for the Canadian government to protect its environment. An ongoing and complex trade issue involves the import of cheaper prescription drugs from Canada to the United States. Due to the Canadian government's price controls as part of their state-run medical system, the prices for these drugs can be a fraction of the price paid by consumers in the unregulated U.S. market. While laws in the United States have been passed against such sales at the national level, specific state and local governments have passed their own legislation to allow the trade to continue. American drug companies; often supporters of political campaigns, have most obviously come out against the practice. With its economy so heavily dependent on natural resource extraction, Canada was hit hard by the Great Depression that followed the crash of the United States stock market in October 1929. The period is remembered as one of the worst times Canada ever faced. It saw soaring unemployment and saw an industrial production collapse. Prices, especially for the farm commodities, fell rapidly as demand for all manner of consumer goods virtually disappeared. The effects of the depression were most felt by the Canadian farmers and workers. In western Canada, prolonged drought, compounded by years of poor soil conservation techniques, devastated vast areas of farmland in southeastern Alberta, southern Saskatchewan, and southwestern Manitoba. Thousands of farmers abandoned their lands to the drifting soil and moved west to British Columbia, northwest into Alberta's Peace River region. Some of them even migrated to different cities. In the early 1930s, Bennett announced a series of sweeping social reform measures, based on President Franklin D. Roosevelt's policies in the United States, in what was referred to as the Bennett New Deal. Bennett endeavored to open foreign markets to Canadian products. A series of preferential tariffs, known as the Ottawa Agreements were undertaken. When the Ottawa Agreements failed to produce the desired results, Bennett approached the United States to begin negotiations for a reciprocal trade treaty, which was eventually signed in 1935 after Bennett had left office. The new agreement was much less inclusive than the 1854 Reciprocity Treaty. One of the most significant outcomes of World War II for Canada in the context of its foreign relations was the relative decline of Great Britain and the emergence of the U.S as the world's leading economic and military power. Canada's relations with Britain were becoming increasingly distant, while those with the United States were getting stronger. The creation of the Permanent Joint Board on Defense in 1940 was a significant indicator of that shift. For the first time ever, Canada coordinated its defense planning with the United States. The Liberal Government's policies (in power since 1935), wartime cooperation, and the close economic interconnections between Canada and the United States had brought the two neighbors into a closer relationship than ever before. After World War II, Canada's special relations with the U.S continued and expanded. Canada, within the inner defense orbit of the United States, had many resources undeveloped and available. The interest of the United States was, therefore, to have assured access to these resources as they were developed, largely with U.S. capital. This special relationship with the United States continued, rooted in geography and common interest. Ties between the two nations were tested, however, by the September 11 attacks of 2001. A tightening of security along the U.S.-Canadian border was quickly visible. Perhaps the greatest challenge came with Canada's refusal to support the United States in Iraq, which brought to the surface strains in relations that had actually existed for some time. Canada and the United States have and will always be interdependent, no matter whatever disputes and conflicts they may have. This is primarily because they not only share the longest border but also depend so much on each other in terms of trade, military issues, environmental issues and many more. "Sleeping with an elephant, no matter how friendly and even-tempered is the beast, if I can call it that; one is affected by every twitch and grunt"(Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau). Shortly after being congratulated by U.S. President George W. Bush for hilarious victory in February 2006, Prime Minister of Canada, Stephen Harper rebuked U.S. Ambassador David Wilkins to Canada, for criticizing the Conservative plans to assert Canada's sovereignty over the Arctic Ocean waters with armed forces. Harper's first meeting with the U.S. President took place at the end of March 2006; and while hardly anything was achieved in terms of solid agreements, the trip was described by the media as an indication of closer relations between the two nations. Reference: Hall, Roger. Canadian History since Confederation. Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc 2007 Francis Douglas and Smith Donald. Readings in Canadian History: Post-Confederation, paperback, Inc 2004 Read More