Canada and the Reagan Challenge

The main virtue of this book is to make readers think about the long-run meaning of the recent conflicts between Canadian and American policies. Professor Clarkson of Toronto gives an account that is comprehensive, tendentious and spiced with a few leaked documents. His understandable reaction against some of the statements made by private and public Americans about Canadian measures-notably the New Energy Policy and the Foreign Investment Review Agency-leads him to exaggerate the significance of some of these statements and to extrapolate from specific measures and attitudes to general, durable policies. He calls for his country to develop a comprehensive American strategy that would require big changes in the way Canada conducts itself, the conversion of many Canadians to views they have long disagreed with, and far more blending of ideas about national, provincial and private interests than seems natural.