Canada’s best Presidents

“He saw Canada as the linchpin of the British empire system of moving goods. And that if you could bring Canada into a sort of American orbit, commerce could still flow but there’d be a big separation between the Pacific and Indian Ocean parts of the British Empire and the Atlantic. This would dramatically reduce British influence in the western hemisphere, it would weaken Britain overall and it would give us access to wonderful resources, terrific people, et cetera,” says Christopher Sands, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute in Washington. “So he had this vision. We would be friends, but we would be friends based on commerce, not conquest. From Taft on, there’s no question of invasion. The view is: we just need to strengthen economic ties. And if you look subsequent to Taft, even though other presidents come in and have different views, that view never changes. It becomes our basic goal.”

If the basic goal, for both sides, has remained unchanged, the subsequent century of alternatively warm, testy and self-conscious relations has depended much on the particular personalities and political pursuits of the individual presidents and prime ministers. Indeed, as deep as the integration is now and as common as the interests may become, much in the two countries’ relationships depends simply on how well the two leaders get along. “I think it matters a lot,” English says. “If you read the memoirs of the presidents and the prime ministers, they tend to think it matters a terrific amount.”

The interaction between Pierre Trudeau and Ronald Reagan makes an intriguing case study. At first glance, they seemed bound to clash. “There’s a great picture,” says Gil Troy, a history professor at McGill University and author of Leading from the Center: Why Moderates Make the Best Presidents, “of Trudeau in an ascot, looking very European, and Reagan in a brown suit, looking sort of midwestern.” Yet he points out that Reagan writes favourably in his memoirs about his first meeting with Trudeau, recalling how they agreed on the need for a closer North American alliance, planting the seeds of the free trade deal Reagan eventually signed with Brian Mulroney.

And if Reagan and Mulroney cultivated a far warmer rapport, Reagan seems to have been more intrigued than annoyed by Trudeau. At the 1984 Group of Seven summit in London, Trudeau coaxed Reagan into reciting Robert Service’s “The Shooting of Dan McGrew” during dinner at Buckingham Palace. Reagan wrote that he realized Trudeau was putting him on the spot. Rather than resenting it, though, Reagan seems to have relished rising to the challenge. He wrote about it in detail and without rancour. His more famous moment with Mulroney, singing When Irish Eyes are Smiling at the so-called Shamrock Summit of 1985, doesn’t rate a mention in his autobiography.

Even Trudeau’s famously tense relationship with Richard Nixon might not have been as dysfunctional as it is often made out to be. It’s widely assumed the two men disliked each other, largely because Nixon was caught on one of his infamous White House tapes calling Trudeau an “asshole.” But the president also employed profanity to be complimentary. In another tape, he’s heard remarking, “That Trudeau, he’s a clever son of a bitch.”

It was Nixon’s vice-president and successor who made perhaps the most concrete positive move for Canada’s international stature. In 1976, Gerald Ford insisted on including Canada in the annual gatherings of the most powerful developed economies, the summits that would become the G7. Ford was from Michigan, and often visited Canada, which seemed to influence his tendency to view Canada favourably. The fact that he was a Republican and Trudeau a Liberal didn’t seem to enter into the matter.

Beyond imploring presidents to do the right thing on the inevitable trade issues, prime ministers have occasionally looked to the White House to send pro-Canadian-unity signals. Bothwell says both Carter and Clinton were helpful in stressing the value of Canada at “fever points of Quebec separatism.” Doing so doesn’t cost a president anything in U.S. domestic politics.

When there’s a clash between American and international interests, or course, presidents tend, like politicians everywhere, to play to the home crowd. In Obama’s case, that might eventually spell disappointment for his legions of admirers abroad, including Canadians. “At a certain point it is more important for him to be popular in Peoria than in Ottawa, let alone than in Europe,” says Troy.

Still, if he should come to be feted on Parliament Hill and hailed as “our president” as well, so be it.

With John Geddes