Forgotten Partnership Redux: Canada-U.S. Relations in the 21st C ...

Americans, not the Canadians, who acquired a postwar political harem and exhausted themselves in an effort to satisfy its requirements.

Deriving from Canada’s recent war record and reflecting the actual prosperity of the Canadian economy and the stability of Canadian society, Canadian diplomacy was active and enterprising—and influential—between 1945 and 1957 (Cohen, 2004). Connections to both the United States and Great Britain were maintained, with the emphasis obviously tilting more and more strongly toward the United States. Trade and investment with the United States flourished, whereas trade with Britain was forced through the strainer of exchange control. Though there was British investment, even some new British investment, it paled compared with the inflow of American dollars into Canada. Nevertheless, the somewhat diminished glamour of Britain in the 1950s made it possible for Canadians—politically as well as culturally, if not economically—to enjoy a happy bigamy with the British and the Americans.

But gradually, though Canadian prosperity did not diminish as far as Canadians could tell, Canada—like Great Britain—became less important on the international scene. Canada and Great Britain became less important to each other, too, as generations changed and memories of the last great common enterprise, the Second World War, faded.¹⁰ (Fittingly, the most visible and popular symbol of the continuing relationship is Queen Elizabeth II, who in her modest way is a veteran of that war.)

As the empire and its palliative-care successor, the Commonwealth, faded, the British could at least console themselves that they need no longer take local sensibilities in far-flung places like Canada into account.¹¹ As always, the links of culture persisted—the “soft” resemblances that brought Canada and Britain closer together (as they did Canada and the United States, and the United States and Britain). As urgency faded during the 1980s, a British diplomat could write that “Canadians are a moderate, comfortable, people. Not surprisingly, they share many characteristics with ourselves … [they are a] decent and reasonable people” (Lord Moran, 1984). These are, essentially, cultural characteristics, far from the realistic calculus of military power or economic influence. And, Lord Moran might have added, decent and reasonable described