Dancing around the Elephant: Creating a Prosperous Canada in an Era of American Dominance, 1957–1973 (review)

Dancing around the Elephant is a thoughtful, often provocative study of Canadian-American-Anglo relations from the first Diefenbaker government to the twilight of the Nixon presidency. It is not, as one might guess from its title, solely concerned with Canada-us relations, but treats in detail the British–Canadian economic and financial relationship as well as Canada’s relations with the European Economic Community. Deeply steeped in archival research in Canada, the United States and Great Britain, it is also refreshingly well written. As a research monograph it will certainly stand for many years as a source of detailed information on trade, investment, and policies relating thereto. The author has previously published a thorough study of Louis Rasminsky, and that study has provided the basis for his insights into the later chapters of the volume. To that basis the author has added careful research in the relevant us presidential archives from Eisenhower to Johnson (not Nixon), the United States and Canadian national archives, and the British Public Records Office, in particular the Treasury, Cabinet, Board of Trade, and Commonwealth Relations Office records. It is important that he has gone well beyond the traditional and – often limited for his topics – diplomatic records.

Although the title is innocuous enough, the study is not one that will make all readers comfortable or even in many cases convinced of the validity of the theses the author advances. The author states his thesis early and clearly in the volume: ‘Where the United States was not concerned about its national security, Canadian governments, even Pearson’s, worked assiduously to promote their country’s interests in Washington to the point of violent disagreement.’ The intent is to counter the impression in some works that the Pearson governments ‘bowed and scraped in the face of American power’ (ix).

Now that more than a generation has passed since the strong stirrings of Canadian nationalism in the 1960s, a nationalism that was and remains fundamentally anti-American in origin and focus, Muirhead is able to provide some perspective on the economic policies pursued in those years, and he argues that what the critics of Canadian policy toward the United States failed to acknowledge was the limited range of choices that Canadian policy makers had open to them in trade and foreign investment. ‘Their analysis,’ he writes, ‘of federal personnel and policy was flawed and their critique does not stand up’ (6). ‘This book,’ he continues, ‘is an attempt to tell all of the economic story and not just that of American domination of Canada’s economy. It also argues that Ottawa made the best of the hand it was dealt’ (8).

The author presents his case well. Yet there are several problems with this analysis, in part because the author has tended to set up a straw man, which he readily puts to the torch. Few scholars have questioned the fact that Canadian-American relations in the years under study were well managed at the bureaucratic level. Few would question, as he correctly notes, that even during the Diefenbaker-Kennedy times of torment, Canadian-American meetings were constructive and collegial as long as the prime minister was not present. Few would question Pearson’s or Trudeau’s strong commitment to Canadian interests. Canadian policy makers are given agency in the story; they are not simply a comprador bourgeoisie acting at the beck and call of their us masters. The qualification the author notes is really the key, however. Canadian negotiators did well on all matters that did not affect us national security. Unfortunately this was the Cold War, and it is naive to imply that economic and financial issues were not perceived in Washington as relevant to us national security. The author in fact undermines his own thesis when he details the extraterritorial application of us laws to prevent not only us subsidiaries in Canada but also in...