Canada
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Letter From,
May 4, 2011
Americans are used to taking no notice of Canadian politics, but the Tories' sweeping victory in this week's federal election is one thing they should not ignore.
Essay,
Sep/Oct
1996
A mere 53,000 voters defeated proposed Quebec secession last October. While Francophones and some fed-up Canadians would love a separation, both assume the rest of Canada will remain whole. But federalism would be weakened, and four provinces would be geographically severed. Montrealers and native peoples within Quebec might demand independence. Although it prefers a united Canada, the United States must prepare a plan for affiliation with Canadian fragments, midway between a treaty and statehood. Balkanization may not be restricted to Eastern Europe.
Essay,
Mar/Apr
1995
To the incredulity of the world, placid, prosperous Canada stands yet again at the brink of constitutional collapse. To resolve this crisis once and for all, Canada must decide what it stands for. Traditionally, the country distinguished itself from its American neighbor by its kinder, gentler social welfare programs, now dismal failures, and by its bilingual national character, now threatened by Quebec's new separatist government. Biculturalism should be Canada's raison d'être. If Quebec secedes, English Canada should consider joining the United States. Either way, Canada will become a more perfect union.
Essay,
Fall
1987
A successfully concluded free trade pact will consolidate co-operation between the USA and Canada, and be of economic benefit to both. It will provide an effective example of liberalizing trade in a world riddled with protectionist tendencies. Failure on the contrary will inflame nationalist sentiments on both sides. The outcome of the trade negotiations may also influence co-operation in other fields such as acid rain, Arctic sovereignty and North American air defence.
Essay,
Winter
1983
Rarely is Canada's external policy the subject of controversy. The country occupies a relatively modest station in the world and exerts its influence through quiet diplomacy, usually coordinated with its allies, and particularly with its major partner, the United States. Canada's foreign policy reflects the nature of the polity itself: it is marked by stability, a penchant for compromise, and a distinct disinclination for rapid political change. Over the last 40 years, there has been a fundamental continuity in Canada's strategic policies, but there has also been a fundamental tension in Canada's position toward the two superpowers.
Essay,
Winter
1981
Relations between Canada and the United States have become more strained than at any time in recent memory. There have been many earlier periods of tension, but the policy orientations of the two capitals in late 1981 appear to be far more divergent than in the past. The two governments seem to be on a collision course, in a context that political leaders cannot fully control.
Essay,
Oct
1977
Foreigners must find it hard to believe that the Canadian people, among the richest and most fortunate on earth, should solemnly consider the destruction of their vast estate sprawling across half a continent. But the crisis now facing them in many forms - constitutional, political, economic and, above all, emotional - has deep roots and lessons for free peoples everywhere.
Essay,
Oct
1976
For as long as most people can remember, a glance out of the corner of one's eye to the upper half of North America would bring warm reassurance that things were moving quietly and gracefully somewhere in the world. Alphonse and Gaston could invariably be heard out there bowing and scraping, and toasting their long undefended border. Today, official devotees of this stately two-step are still meeting and greeting, but few take the old shuffle at face value. Instead, private conversations in directors' board rooms, in expensive lunch clubs, in government cafeterias and in faculty lounges have a distinctly worried and wary undertone.
Essay,
Jul
1976
What does Québec want? The question is an old cliché in Canadian political folklore. Again and again, during the more than 30 years since the end of World War II, it's been raised whenever Québec's attitudes made it the odd man out in the permanent pull and tug of our federal-provincial relations. In fact, it's a question which could go back to the British conquest of an obscure French colony some 15 years before American Independence, and then run right through the stubborn survival of those 70,000 settlers and their descendants during the following two centuries.
Essay,
Oct
1973
Relations between the Canadian and U.S. governments are probably more strained than at any time in living memory. The difficulties are not of the same order of magnitude as those between decidedly competitive or unfriendly neighbors, but they are enough to make uncomfortable a relationship which for at least three decades had been presumed to be, and was in fact, almost ideal. During that period, and indeed generally going back much further, both countries assumed their interests seldom differed significantly in either multilateral diplomacy or in matters related to North America; with this assumption, whatever differences arose were handled with discretion and forbearance.
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