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 Editorials | At Issue | March 2005 
And On Other Side of the US, a Really Big Blue State
 Clifford Krauss - The New York Times
It is a story that every Canadian student of foreign policy knows, but few Americans remember.
In 1965, at the height of the Vietnam War buildup, Prime Minister Lester Pearson suggested to a university audience in Philadelphia that the United States should stop bombing North Vietnam in the pursuit of a negotiated settlement. The U.S. president, Lyndon B. Johnson, was not amused.
When the courtly Canadian leader then stopped by for a visit to Camp David, the presidential retreat in Maryland, Johnson grabbed him by the lapels and accused him, in so many words, of soiling his rug.
Emotions are a bit lower now, and President George W. Bush is likely to be more polite when he greets Prime Minister Paul Martin of Canada, along with President Vicente Fox of Mexico, at his ranch in Crawford, Texas. But things could be tense, with differences over trade and Bush's planned missile defense system adding to past strains over Iraq.
With the possible exception of France, no traditional ally has been more consistently at odds with the United States than Canada.
Canada refused to take part in President Harry S. Truman's Berlin airlift, withheld full support from President John F. Kennedy during the Cuban missile crisis and retains diplomatic and trade relations with Cuba to this day.
Ottawa criticized President Ronald Reagan's interventions in Central America and his invasion of Grenada, and more recently split with the United States by pushing vigorously for the International Court of Justice, an international land mine treaty and the Kyoto climate control accord.
While Canadian and American leaders always claim the greatest of fondness for one another, and have sent troops into war together, more often than not they have not gotten along very well. And when they have, Canadian leaders have sometimes had to pay a political price.
It has been that way since the American Revolution and the War of 1812, when thousands of Loyalists left their homes to go north rather than rebel against the British Crown and then fought off repeated American invasions.
"Canadians and Americans are rooted in clashing narratives, which create the foundation of instability and a baseline for all these tiffs," said Gil Troy, an American professor of history at McGill University.
Brian Mulroney was the exceptional Canadian prime minister who embraced the United States and negotiated a free trade agreement with Washington. At a 1985 meeting in Quebec City, he and Reagan hugged and sang "When Irish Eyes Are Smiling." But the coziness of that "Shamrock Summit" did not sit well with many Canadians, with one pundit derisively commenting that "our prime minister invited his boss home for dinner."
Prime Minister Jean Chrétien and President Bill Clinton got along and shared a love for golf, but relations deteriorated badly when Bush took power and Chretién's press secretary called him "a moron," for which she was eventually fired.
Bush acknowledged how much Canadians disliked him and his administration during his visit to Ottawa late last year by thanking everyone who waved at his motorcade, particularly those who waved "with all five fingers."
But the laughter did not help relations much. A couple of weeks ago Martin refused to join Bush's missile defense system, after publicly defending it only a year ago, because of pressures in his Liberal Party. His foreign minister said the decision reflected "Canadian values," a suggestion that Canada hears a higher moral calling than its American neighbor. When Martin called Bush to explain, it took Bush nine long days to call him back.
In a sense, the divide between Canadians and Americans parallels that between Democrats and Republicans, blue states and red states. Canada is one big blue state, and proud of it.
"It's something in our bones, it's part of our DNA," said Lloyd Axworthy, who was Chrétien's foreign minister and is now president of the University of Winnipeg. "Whether it's nukes or Iraq, we're just not in synch." |
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