Presidents and Prime Ministers

Canada and the United States have shared a continent for 233 years. Yet their governments have dealt with each other directly for less than a third of this time.

Canada gained control of her own foreign policy in 1931. For the preceding 155 years after American Independence, US-Canadian affairs were negotiated through Britain. For the first two thirds of that time, Anglo-American affairs were frosty if not hostile.

To the US during those years, Canada was a holdout of the Empire she had rebelled against. To Britain, she was only one of several overseas holdings in a global chess game. Frequently, this meant negotiating away Canadian interests to appease American ones.

This changed in 1940. When France fell to the Nazis and it appeared Britain might follow, Canada became a strategic interest on the US northern border. This continued in the Cold War when the USSR replaced the Axis powers as an American adversary.

A 10 year overlap between President Franklin Roosevelt and Prime Minister Mackenzie King cemented strategic and economic relations between the two countries during the Second World War.

Of the 13 presidents and 13 prime ministers since 1940, only two other pairs have approached the FDR-WLMK tandem in length or degree of congurence.

A six year overlap between PM Brian Mulroney and President Ronald Reagan, followed by four years with Reagan’s Vice President and successor, George H. W. Bush, lead to the greatest steps in economic integration between the countries since the Second World War.

A seven year overlap between President Bill Clinton and PM Jean Chrétien benefited both countries on the world stage. President Clinton’s statement in support of Canadian unity may have been a deciding factor in the 1995 Québec sovereignty referendum.

These three pairs represent a congruence in ideology, with Roosevelt and Clinton, both Democrats, working with Liberals King and Chrétien. The Reagan-Bush relationship with Mulroney exemplifies an affinity of Republicans and Conservatives.

Party label, however, is too narrow a base on which to explain foreign policy. Liberal PM Lester B. Pearson was elected in Canada with the tacit support of Democratic President John F. Kennedy, whose nuclear weapons policy he had endorsed.

Pearson had a falling out with Kennedy’s successor, President Lyndon Johnson, also a Democrat, over the Vietnam War, however. Conversely, Liberal Pierre Trudeau, secured the backing of Republican President Gerald Ford, for Canada’s entry into the G6 trading bloc. With Canadian membership in 1976, this became the G7.

Three of the 13 prime ministers (Clark, Turner and Campbell) served for less than a year. Six of the US presidents served only one elected term (Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Ford, Carter and George H. W. Bush.) President Obama, just beginning. also fits here at present.

The longest serving PM since King, Trudeau, overlapped with five US presidents: Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter and Reagan. However, the longest serving of these, President Nixon, was the one with whom Trudeau had the least affinity and minimal influence.

The United States is the third world power of which Canada has been a satellite, the other two being Britain (from 1763-1939) and France (from 1608-1759).

A simplistic view sees a satellite revolving around a great power. A subtler understanding—and the astronomical reality—describes a planet and satellite as “revolving around a common centre” that probably lies within the larger body.

Great powers encompass global features within their spheres of influence even when these are seen as national interests. Democratic politics may blind an electorate to these global interests.

An effective satellite enhances awareness of these global interests, as the moon affects tides and prevailing winds. Canada’s experience of being a satellite and her loose federal system can remind her superpower neighbour and the global centre of gravity we both share.

The personalizing of Canadian-American relations needs to be viewed against this backdrop.