CANADA AND U.S.: MENDING THE FENCES, POLITICALLY AND MILITARILY Just a brief look this week at American- Canadian relations, which have in recent months taken on a very positive tone. This trend began in earnest with the election of Brian Mulroney, first as leader of the Progressive Conservative Party in June 1983 and his subsequent election as Prime Minister last September, events that greatly pleased President Reagan. Last week this growing across-the-border comaraderie culminated in the St. Patrick's Day "Shamrock Summit" (both men are of Irish extraction) in Quebec City. Televised news coverage showed the two men and their wives heartily singing "When Irish Eyes are Smiling" on stage at a gala dinner.
There's no doubt Mr. Reagan and Mr. Mulroney get along very well together. Not only are they similar in their conservative views, there is "good chemistry" between them. Asked about Mr. Mulroney's personality, Mr. Reagan responded in the March 18, 1985 issue of MACLEAN'S, the Canadian news weekly:
People respond more warmly to some than to others. We're all human. And I confess that I like Brian Mulroney a lot. He is a true Canadian patriot. He is honest, hardworking, intelligent and articulate — in two languages at that. So, let's just say that the chemistry is good.
At the summit, the two leaders signed a number of bilateral accords, including one which ends a bitter 15-year battle over West Coast fishing rights. The sensitive issue of acid rain, and the role of U.S. industry in contaminating Canadian forests and lakes, was assigned to commissions to investigate.
The most critical decision was the agreement to upgrade the early warning DEW defense line in Canada's extreme north with new technology along with adding additional unmanned radar units. To be renamed the North Warning System, Canada for the first time will share in the costs of the system (which is intended to warn against manned bombers and cruise missiles) as well as sharing in the defense contracts necessary to upgrade the system, giving Canada access to U.S. technology. This development flows from Mr. Mulroney's intention to contribute more to Canada's role in both North American defense and NATO (he also dispatched additional troops to Europe as a gesture in this regard) as well as further intensifying Canadian-U.S. economic ties. Unlike the previous Trudeau government, Mr. Mulroney is actively encouraging investment from the U.S. and elsewhere.
To further explain the relationship between Canada and the United States, we present excerpts of two articles, the first one from the March 10 SAN DIEGO UNION, entitled "Canada — World's Biggest Buffer State." (The Soviets could only wish their buffer zone — Eastern Europe — were as cooperative.) The article was written by Peter Benesh, an editorial writer for the OTTAWA CITIZEN.
There may be angst over ANZUS, but there's no need for neurosis over NORAD. That's the message the Canadian government is sending...to the Reagan administration. When the President flies north to meet Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney in Quebec City for the St. Patrick's Day "shamrock summit," Mulroney intends that Reagan be primed and receptive toward Canada, the neighbor Americans love to ignore.
No issue, Canadians believe, ought to make Washington and all Americans more sensitive to Canada than defense. Canada, the second-largest nation earth, is also the world's biggest buffer state. Any Soviet missiles or bombers shot down in mid-flight are going to land on Canada. Indeed, depending on where the Soviets might intercept incoming American weapons, they too could fall on Canadian territory.
The country can't be moved, and the superpowers can't be moved. Canada therefore has the dubious honor of being the potential minced meat in the nuclear sandwich. But, because most of the nation's population resides within driving distance of the U.S. border, Canadians accept the role created by their geography and live relatively comfortably under the protection of the U.S. defense umbrella. They also hold up a corner of that umbrella, although in recent years not with the exertion the U.S. administration would prefer.
Canada is a partner with the U.S. in NORAD, the North American Aerospace Defense Command. In fact, a Canadian is traditionally the deputy commander, even though Canada's contribution to the operation is a mere 9-10 percent of the total. For example, during the 1985-2000 period, NORAD will have a total of 22 fighter interceptor squadrons. Two will be Canadian, made up of some of the 138 F-18 fighters Canada is buying from the United States.... The 10-1 U.S.-to-Canadian contribution is typical of the bilateral relationship in most areas. Despite its size, Canada has only about 24 million people, roughly the population of California. It lacks the economies of scale to do much more than it does in defense....
Mostly for economic reasons, Brian Mulroney wants the friendliest possible relationship with Washington, and one way he's trying to achieve that goal is by endorsing, almost without critical evaluation, Reagan's defense plans. For example, Mulroney's government has endorsed research into "Star Wars" defense systems. External Affairs Minister Joe Clark called the research "prudent" in the House of Commons.
However, the government is not prepared to issue a wholesale endorsement of the concept — yet. Predictably not wanting to anger the radical center of the Canadian political spectrum, Clark has maintained the traditional position that Canada will not accept nuclear weapons on its soil. On the other hand, the government has made it as easy as possible for the U.S. military to test the cruise missile over Canada. When your countryside looks like the winter terrain around Moscow, it's hard to say no to your NORAD and NATO partner....
Ironically, the cruise tests over Canada illustrate the new strategic implications of the "Star Wars" defense system. If "Star Wars" ever becomes a reality, Canadian military planners believe that offensive and defensive strategies will fall back on 20-year-old precedents. If satellites can protect against intercontinental missiles, then the enemy will try to penetrate the defense shield with low-flying manned bombers and cruise missiles.
A Unique Relationship
Americans, as Canadians are quick to point out, take their northern neighbor for granted. Perhaps this is partly due to the fact that the two brother countries have worked so harmoniously together, even in the relatively bad years of the Trudeau era. The trade flow between the two nations is enormous; nothing else compares with it in the entire world. In fact, it can be said that the only true "Common Market' in the world is in North America. And while much is said of the predominant role of U.S. industrial investment in Canada, there is a lot of the reverse investment as well, as a lengthy article entitled "Canada's New Economic Clout," which appeared in the February 17, 1985 NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE, graphically reveals:
It is entirely possible today that some average American goes to work in a skyscraper owned by Canadians, that he processes office forms printed by Canadians before grabbing a quick lunch in a restaurant owned by Canadians. He buys a Canadian novel in a bookstore owned by Canadians and perhaps watches a new office tower being built across the street by a Canadian firm.
After work, he jumps on a railroad car made by Canadians and powered by electricity from Canada and settles in to read a newspaper printed on Canadian paper. His wife waits for him in a car built in Canada with Canadian iron ore. They drive on Canadian cement to a home insured by Canadians and heated by Canadian natural gas.
On the weekends, if the weather coming down from Canada is nice, they might take in a race featuring Canadian thoroughbreds, catch a Canadian-made movie with Canadian stars or stay at home to watch Canadian football or hockey teams and sip Canadian whisky or Canadian beer hauled south on an American railroad owned by the Canadian Government.
It is an important measure of the advanced state of economic integration in North America today that no one really much attention to this phenomenon, unique in a world just becoming aware of its acute economic interdependence. Two independent countries that once were English colonies and then went their own ways politically have now drifted back together so closely economically that virtually every action any sector takes has some significant effect in the other land.
With a common border, a common cultural heritage and a common capitalist tendency for profit, Canada and the United States have forged the closest economic links of any two truly independent countries in the world, exchanging around $100 billion in goods, services and resources each year. It is an economic relationship so massive that neither government can even monitor it fully, let alone control it. According to one estimate, upward of 2 million American jobs depend, at least in part, on trade with Canada. The bilateral exchanges are so big that the amount traded between the United States and just Canadian province, Ontario, is larger than all the trade between the United States and Japan, America's next largest trading partner....
Compared with disarmament talks or a Russian invasion of Afghanistan, the economic skirmishes that have broken out regularly across the 49th parallel over things like fishing, trucking, magazines and even acid rain can seem more like the disputes of some colossal city council than issues affecting international relations....
The United States remains by far the largest foreign investor in Canada, with about $45 billion (United States dollars) in direct investment. Given the weak Canadian dollar and the perceived nationalistic hostility of the Trudeau Government in its waning years, that sum had actually declined by more than $4 billion.... In his first five months in office, Mr. Mulroney, who confronts a sluggish economy and a stubborn 11 percent unemployment rate, has made it clear he wants to change that image because it is necessary to change that economy. "Canada is open for business again," he said, claiming to have launched "a fundamental change" in economic direction that welcomes new foreign investment and private-sector business. This point of view is not universally applauded; more foreign investment can be a very controversial policy in the new Canada....
Canada has come to play a deep and far-ranging role in the life of the United States. The Canadian economic push to the south has occurred in everything from banking, beer, utilities, farming, real estate, manufacturing, to entertainment and communications. Not to mention mobs of Canadian tourists who, any winter, can total one million in Florida alone.
This is not so much an invading Canadian manifest destiny as it is a businessman's destiny of manifests. Canada is a large market, but the United States is an enormous market. As Canadian companies reach maturity, and as the limited markets at home come under the control of a few large companies, the most logical and tempting target to aim at is right next door. So much so, in fact, that Canada...has come from out of nowhere with more than $11.1 billion to become the third largest foreign investor in the United States today, after the United Kingdom and the Netherlands.... It has become a familiar characteristic of the emerging joint continental economy that one Canadian beer, Moosehead from New Brunswick, is better known in the United States, where it is available in all 50 states, than it is in its homeland, where it is available in only three of the 12 provinces and territories....
Further evidence of the Canadian economic penetration is everywhere, although it is not always packaged as Canadian. Three railroads in the United States are owned by Grand Trunk, the American subsidiary of the Canadian National Railway. Power companies, from New England all the way across to Washington and Oregon, are buying Canadian hydroelectricity in long term, multibillion-dollar contracts. Canada has the free-flowing water resources to make electricity cheaply. The United States has the market to support the huge investments needed for the power plants and transmission lines. Americans need extra power in summer to run their air-conditioners. Canadians need extra power in winter for heat. It is all a match made in the treasurer's office, if not in heaven — as long as things go well; the great 1965 power blackout in the northeastern United States actually began in some Canadian switches....
Each spring, Canadian farmers, with their new combines, stream across the border toward Texas and Oklahoma to begin an efficient harvest-for-hire of American wheat. By late summer, when Canada's wheatfields are ready to cut, the machines are back home ready for the job.... Some of New York's new subway cars are being made in Canada. When Chrysler looked for a place to build its new (and successful) minivan most efficiently, it chose a Canadian factory in Windsor, Ontario. Northern Telecom, a subsidiary of Bell Canada, has become the second largest manufacturer of communications equipment in North America.... [Ambassador College is a customer.]
The Toronto Star's sister company, Harlequin Enterprises, gained a corner on the lucrative American market for paper back romances, which are sold in Canadian-owned Coles Book Stores. Toronto's Thomson newspapers own 87 daily American newspapers. CanadianÂborn Mortimer Zuckerman now owns two American magazines, The Atlantic and U.S. News & World Report.
The above article was written by Andrew H. Malcolm, who spent four years as the NEW YORK TIMES' correspondent in Toronto. It was adapted from Mr. Malcolm's new book THE CANADIANS. That might be an interesting book to consider perusing. Mr. Malcolm is a very descriptive writer. Other passages of his article were too long to quote here, but he portrays geographic conditions in Canada very vividly and with interesting comparisons.
With other world news a bit slow this week, I thought it would be good to share this material about an international relationship unique in the world, and one which North Americans themselves do not comprehend or appreciate to the extent they should.
ON THE WORLD SCENE
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