C.D. Howe Series in Canadian Political History – serie

Foreign policy is a tricky business. Typically, challenges and proposed solutions are perceived as disparate unless a leader can amass enough support for an idea that creates alignment. And because the prime minister is typically the one proposing that idea, Canadian foreign policy can be analyzed through the actions of these leaders.

Statesmen, Strategists, and Diplomats explores how prime ministers from Sir John A. Macdonald to Justin Trudeau have shaped foreign policy by manipulating government structures, adopting and rejecting options, and imprinting their personalities on the process. Contributors consider the impact of a wide range of policy decisions – increasing or decreasing department budgets, forming or ending alliances, and pursuing trade relationships – particularly as these choices affected the bureaucracies that deliver foreign policy diplomatically and militarily.

This innovative focus is destined to trigger a new appreciation for the formidable personal attention and acuity involved in a successful approach to external affairs.

In 1941, influential US publishing magnate Henry Luce declared the world was in the midst of the first great American century, believing his nation held the power and vision to lead and transform the world. What did a newly outward-looking and hegemonic United States mean for its northern neighbour? North of America is a sharp-eyed volume providing a unique look at postwar Canada, bringing to the fore the opinions and perceptions of a broad range of Canadians – from consumers to diplomats, jazz musicians to urban planners, and a diverse cross-section in between. As they grappled with issues including constitutional reform, transit policy, national security, the arrival of television, white supremacy, and postwar domesticity, Canadians were ever mindful of the unfolding American experience and its influence.

From the late 1950s to the mid-1990s, Canadian policy-makers shared a remarkably similar world view that shaped their approach toward South African apartheid and the risks it posed to global race relations. Why did Ottawa take a leading role internationally in addressing an issue seemingly peripheral to its national interests?

Canada, Apartheid, and the Defence of the Liberal Order draws on newly declassified files and an extensive program of interviews with policy-makers, officials, and activists in a definitive investigation of Canada's response to apartheid. Over nearly four decades, Canadian policy-makers and officials held consistently to the view that the West's association with Pretoria's organized racial oppression threatened to undermine the appeal of the liberal world order. In opposing apartheid, Canada was defending a global system predicated on norms, rules, and institutions in which Ottawa was ideologically invested.

By unravelling the thread of racial perceptions woven through the liberal order, this thought-provoking study reveals Canada's liminal position in the apartheid story and global politics to be as much a social matter as a question of power dynamics.

Conventional wisdom holds that foreign policy was not a priority for Jean Chrétien over his ten years as Canadian prime minister. Chrétien and the World combines the perspectives of key players of the time with analyses by leading scholars to reveal something unexpected: an often ambitious, activist approach to international affairs.

Contributors draw on personal recollections, interviews, and research to portray a coherent and engaged foreign policy. Chrétien responded to events that reshaped the international landscape, notably 9/11, the war on terror, the US-led invasion of Iraq, and Canadian involvement in Afghanistan. Working with trusted ministers, he emphasized trade liberalization, strong bilateral and multilateral relations, human security, and humanitarian intervention. Often characterized as purely pragmatic, Chrétien's tenure in fact marked a high point of liberal internationalism.

This insightful collection demonstrates how Canada navigated crucial years between the end of the Cold War and the emergence of a new geopolitical reality.

J.L. Ilsley, federal finance minister from 1940 to 1946, was responsible for financing Canadian participation in the Second World War. A Wartime Finance Minister tells the story of how his efforts to do so transformed the tax system and established the financial basis of the modern welfare state.

Between 1939 and 1943, Canada's war effort boosted federal spending and revenue tenfold, a commitment Ilsley financed by borrowing through Victory Bond campaigns and extending income tax to most of the working population, at sharply progressive rates. Agreements made with the provinces in 1941 became the foundation of modern federal–provincial fiscal relations. Ilsley preached that the war required high but fair taxes, wage and price controls, and frugality, winning public confidence in the measures partly through his own example of self-sacrifice.

As this compelling account of his life and career reveals, Ilsley's promotion and defence of these policies brought lasting benefit to Canada.