Diverging paths for Canada: nationalism between Britain and America, 1957–1963

ABSTRACT

Canada presents an interesting case study for studies of nationalism. Amidst recent and continuing invocations of Canada’s ‘post-nationalism’, this article highlights a key historical inflection point in articulations of Canadian national identity: the tenure of Progressive Conservative Prime Minister John Diefenbaker from 1957–1963. Amidst the throes of the Cold War, negotiation over and articulation of Canadian national identity was informed by concerns at American cultural and economic encroachment and declining links to Britain. Bridging political, cultural, and social history, this vignette points to the highly protean, contested nature of national identity as applied to a Canada in transition.

KEYWORDS:

• Nationalism
• national identity
• Canada
• Cold War

Acknowledgments

The author wishes to thank Professor Andrew Preston for his guidance on the dissertation that this essay is derived from, the University of Saskatchewan (particularly Lindsay Stokalko) for digitising material from their archives, and their Dad, without whom this project would not exist.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. House of Commons Debates, 25^th Parliament, 1^st Session, Volume 3 in Canadian Parliamentary Historical Resources, p. 3112.

2. The term ‘Laurentian consensus’ was coined by John Ibbitson in 2011, encompassing an alleged governing class of Canada and its modus operandi (https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/the-death-of-the-laurentian-consensus-and-what-it-says-about-canada/article4403773/) (accessed 27/12/23).

3. See Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Addresses to the German Nation, ed. Gregory Moore (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), p. xi.

4. Janice Cavell and Ryan Touhey, Reassessing the Rogue Tory: Canadian Foreign Relations in the Diefenbaker Era (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2018), p. 69.

5. Alan Macpherson, Yankee No!: Anti-Americanism in US-Latin American Relations (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 2003), p. 3.

6. Treaty of Mutual Co-operation and Security between the United States and Japan, more commonly known as the US-Japan Security Treaty, which entered into force on 23 June 1960.

7. Nick Kapur, ‘Japan’s Streets of Rage: The 1960 US-Japan Security Treaty Uprising and the Origins of Contemporary Japan’ in the Asia-Pacific Journal, vol. 18:3 (2020), p. 5.

8. Jennifer Maclennan, ‘Dancing with our Neighbours: English Canadians and the Discourse of anti-Americanism’ in Transnationalism: Canada-United States History into the 21^st Century eds. Behiels and Stuart, (Montréal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2010), p. 70.

9. Robert Bothwell, Ian Drummond, and John English, Canada since 1945: Revised Edition (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1989), p. 186.

10. ‘Northern Vision Not Satisfied – PM’ in The Calgary Herald, 21 July 1961, p1.

11. William Crawford, ‘In the same boat’, University of Saskatchewan, University Archives and Special Collections, Personal and Confidential Series 1957–1979 (XII), MG01/C/85, volume 52, document 036149.

12. ‘Visit of Secretary of State to Ottawa’, 28–29 July 1957, Report of US Ambassador on Mr Dulles’ Visit in Documents on Canadian External Relations, volume 25 (1957–1958), p. 1.

13. Asa McKercher, Canada and the world since 1876, (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2019), p. 159.

14. Greg Donaghy, Tolerant Allies: Canada and the United States, 1963–1968, (Montréal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2002). p. 6.

15. Robert Bothwell, Ian Drummond and John English, Canada Since 1945: Revised Edition (Toronto: University of Toronto, 1989), p. 190.

16. Jose Igartua, The Other Quiet Revolution: National Identities in English Canada, 1945–1971 (Vancouver: University of British Colombia Press, 2007), p. 132.

17. Donaghy, Tolerant Allies, p. 5.

18. Denis Smith, Rogue Tory: The Life and Legend of John G. Diefenbaker, (Toronto: Macfarlane Walter & Ross, 1995), p. 223.

19. Poster of Diefenbaker and Macdonald, University of Saskatchewan, University Archives and Special Collections, Poster Series (XX), MG01/XX/POS 028, 023620.

20. ‘Telegram from the Embassy in Canada to the Department of State’, 17 December 1962, in Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961–1963, Volume XIII, Western Europe and Canada, p. 1192.

21. Charles Ritchie, Diplomatic Passport: More Undiplomatic Diaries, 1946–1962 (Toronto: Macmillan of Canada, 1981), p. 147.

22. Robert Bothwell, Your Country, My Country: A Unified History of the United States and Canada (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), pp. 249–250.

23. Bothwell, Drummond, and English, Canada since 1945, p. 196.

24. Smith, Rogue Tory, p. 422.

25. George Grant, Lament for a Nation: The Defeat of Canadian Nationalism (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2005).

26. Charles Foran, ‘The Canada Experiment: is this the world’s first “post-national” country?’ in The Guardian, 4 January 2017, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jan/04/the-canada-experiment-is-this-the-worlds-first-postnational-country (Accessed 26/12/23).