Auto Pact: Creating a Borderless North American Auto Industry, 1960–1971 (review)

For Canadians, the Canada-US Automotive Products Trade Agreement, or Auto Pact, is considered an icon of successful industrial policy. How did it evolve? Who were the players? What were their motivations? What was its impact? These are the central questions for which Dimitry Anastakis seeks answers in Auto Pact: Creating a Borderless North American Automotive Industry.

This book stems from Anastakis's 2001 PhD thesis, Auto Pact: Business and Diplomacy in the Creation of a Borderless North American Auto Industry, 1945-1971. Like the thesis, the structure is primarily chronological, not surprising in light of the author's goal of tracing the ebbs and flows of the negotiations between the two continental partners. However, the book also represents a maturing of the author. In it, Anastakis displays a much deeper understanding of his subject. An over-reliance on the archives of bit players in the thesis has been reduced, replaced by new, richer sources of data. As well, while the thesis's data source was primarily Canadian, the book takes a much broader approach. Also, through a more consistent and deliberate effort to contextualize the events and motivations of the actors—providing background on socio-economic conditions—the book represents an advancement of the material covered in the thesis. The overall effect, therefore, is that a more complete, balanced offering has emerged.

Enacted in 1965, the Auto Pact defined the terms and conditions for continental trade in automotive products between Canada and the United States. It persisted until 1999 when the World Trade Organization struck it down. Anastakis traces its origins, focusing in particular on the downturn experienced by the Canadian automotive industry in the late 1950s, the importance of the industry to the Canadian industrial complex and the efforts and motivations of successive Canadian governments to obtain something approximating a "fair share" of the fruits of the North American automotive market. Anastakis's analysis essentially ends in 1971; a logical point because by then, most of the questions American policymakers held regarding the efficacy of maintaining the Auto Pact had been set aside and the process of integrating the two signatories' auto industries had been firmly established.

Anastakis is certainly not the first person to study the Auto Pact. From its inception, it has been the subject of a long and steady stream of enquiry by legal scholars, trade policy analysts, economists and others. Overwhelmingly, their approach has been to interpret or manipulate the Auto Pact's intention and/or assess its effectiveness. Until now, however no one has sought to provide anything nearing the kind of exhaustive account of its negotiation and implementation that Anastakis has developed. And a fulsome account it is. His engagement in the details is comprehensive and balanced. By combing company and government archives across North America, Anastakis adds new and valuable perspective. Indeed, it is likely that many of the records Anastakis reviewed over the course of his research have never before been opened for the purpose of studying the Auto Pact. Because of his engagement in the details and his apparent enthusiastic and disciplined examination of the archival record, even those who consider themselves intimate with the Auto Pact and its development most certainly have regular cause to acknowledge that Anastakis offers new anecdotes and added nuance.

Broadly speaking, the Auto Pact is really an elaborate duty remission scheme. The fact that a short but elegant piece of economic and trade policy became, for Canadians, a source of national pride—monitored closely, scrutinized regularly, interpreted widely and defended vigorously—would appear to represent a decades long over-reaction. That it was vital and worth defending is accepted by Canadians as fact. Non-Canadians might justifiably question the apparent obsession. In fact, Anastakis acknowledges that non Canadian examination, or even acknowledgement of the Auto Pact, is rare. In presenting the most comprehensive account of the Auto Pact to date, Anastakis is...