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1:05

From Cafe and the Vox Media Podcast

1:08

Network, this is Now and Then.

1:13

I'm Heather Cox Richardson. And I'm Joanne

1:15

Freeman. This week we're gonna talk

1:17

about a topic that was inspired

1:19

by something that happened last week, And

1:22

that is President Biden made his

1:24

first trip to Canada since

1:27

assuming office. Americans

1:30

think about Canada a lot. Canadians

1:32

actually think about America a lot. But

1:34

what we're interested in looking at is the

1:37

relationship between the countries,

1:39

how Americans have conceived of Canada

1:41

and how that has worked its way through

1:44

American ideas about itself

1:47

and the world. Now, at the

1:49

end of last month, Biden

1:52

went to Canada, met with Prime Minister

1:55

Justin Trudeau, largely

1:57

to rebuild the relationship between

2:00

in the United States after four years

2:02

of provocation between Donald

2:05

Trump and Canada. But in

2:07

addition to relationship building, they

2:10

made some specific agreements about

2:12

North American Aerospace Defense

2:15

Command, about semiconductor

2:17

manufacturing, about the crisis

2:19

in Haiti, about climate change.

2:22

And they

2:23

made a high-profile announcement

2:27

about a deal that they struck that would allow both

2:29

countries to turn away asylum seekers

2:31

who crossed the border illegally.

2:34

There were a lot of shows of affection between

2:37

the two leaders. It was clear that the nature

2:39

of their relationship to each other and

2:41

of the two countries' relationship to each other was part

2:44

of what they were communicating.

2:46

Here's what Trudeau said. Today,

2:49

new threats to liberal democracy

2:51

loom on the horizon, and we are united

2:54

in our efforts to protect our countries and

2:56

what we stand for.

2:58

Canada and the US are bolstering

3:00

Ukraine's defence against Putin's illegal

3:03

and unjustifiable invasion. We

3:05

are steadfast security partners

3:08

through NORAD and NATO and

3:10

the Five Eyes alliances. We're

3:12

standing shoulder to shoulder in defence

3:15

of our values and against authoritarianism.

3:19

We are working to fight climate change

3:21

and create new opportunities for people

3:23

in both of our countries.

3:25

We are facing the future head on,

3:28

eyes open, and

3:30

with an unwavering belief that

3:32

justice will always rise up and

3:34

make, as one of your favorite poets,

3:37

Seamus Heaney, said, hope and

3:39

history rhyme.

3:42

I particularly liked that Biden is

3:44

trying so hard to create

3:47

alliances around the globe today,

3:50

and he said back to Trudeau,

3:52

We're

3:52

more than neighbors. And I mean this

3:54

from the bottom of my heart. We're more than neighbors. We're

3:57

more than partners. We're more than

3:59

friends. And you alluded

4:01

to it today, just

4:04

a moment ago, Mr. Prime Minister. We're

4:06

more like family. We're more

4:08

like family. So

4:11

ladies and gentlemen, the family,

4:13

to Canada and to the United States,

4:16

here, here. Before

4:18

we look a little bit at the United

4:20

States and Canada,

4:22

let's just set the ground here with

4:24

a few basic facts about

4:27

the country of Canada. Canada is

4:29

home to about 37 million people,

4:31

which is slightly less than the population of

4:33

California. It's made

4:35

up of 10 provinces and three territories.

4:39

Central Canadian provinces, Ontario and

4:41

Quebec, are the most populous ones.

4:44

Ontario, which houses Toronto, is home

4:47

to more than 15 million people.

4:49

As far as its government goes, Canada is a

4:51

parliamentary democracy, and

4:54

its House of Commons, which essentially

4:56

is its version of the House of Representatives,

4:59

has 388 members.

5:01

Each province and territory is led

5:03

by a premier. The role is

5:06

basically Canada's version of a governor,

5:08

except in their system, the premier is both a

5:11

member of the province's legislative assembly

5:13

and its executive branch leader.

5:16

One of the things I loved about this idea

5:19

for an episode, Joanne, was that when

5:21

I anyway think of Canada, I have really

5:24

distinct images in my mind.

5:27

And I've never really tried to put them all together

5:29

before. The period of colonial Canada

5:31

and the United States is sort of required

5:34

knowledge on the part of American historians.

5:37

Then the 19th century, when Canada becomes

5:39

its own country, is another period

5:42

which we're pretty clear on. And then there's

5:44

this

5:45

sort of late 20th century image

5:47

of Canada. And putting all of those

5:49

things together is I thought really

5:52

interesting. So let's start with the

5:54

colonial era. One

5:56

of the things that always jumps out to me when you do colonial

5:58

American history is that there. weren't just 13 colonies

6:02

on the North American continent, and they

6:04

weren't just settled by English

6:06

people. And there were lots of

6:08

options for them to work with

6:10

other colonies in ways that in the end they didn't.

6:13

I think because we have such an American-centric

6:17

focus on particularly these

6:19

early years, we forget that

6:21

there were not only 13 North American

6:24

colonies, there were Canadian colonies, there

6:26

were ultimately what become the

6:28

United States, North American colonies, and

6:30

then even the colonies in the Caribbean, all

6:33

of them were linked together, at least

6:35

in the mind of various

6:37

empires in the world, as vital places

6:40

to potentially have some hand

6:42

in to have some power over. I

6:44

always think about the European empires in

6:46

this period as being maritime-based,

6:49

and so what they're really interested in is harbors.

6:52

And if you think about things that way, there's

6:54

really a continuity from the

6:56

Caribbean up through what become

6:59

the 13

7:00

United States colonies into

7:02

Canada. And there's no obvious

7:05

reason from the beginning that

7:07

somebody would say, oh yeah, these 13 colonies

7:09

are their own thing, but the Caribbean

7:11

colonies and the Canadian colonies are

7:13

going to be something different. So can you walk us through

7:16

that?

7:16

So during the Revolutionary War, British

7:19

Canada was primarily made of three colonies,

7:22

Nova Scotia, including St.

7:24

John's and now Prince Edward Island, Quebec,

7:27

and Newfoundland. Now,

7:29

Newfoundland had been a British colony since 1610.

7:31

The

7:33

other colonies had been French possessions

7:36

until the 1700s.

7:39

Mainland Nova Scotia came under British

7:41

control after the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht, while

7:44

Quebec and St. John followed in 1763 following

7:47

the French and Indian War. So one big

7:49

point about Canada, and also about

7:52

just generally the continent of North America

7:54

is particularly England, France, and

7:57

the United States

7:59

jostling. around, of course, initially

8:01

not the United States, trying

8:03

to draw boundaries and claim rivers

8:06

and move peoples. And that's some of what we're

8:08

seeing here.

8:09

So tell me about how we

8:11

get Acadians, because this is the part that I think

8:14

is so cool. So in

8:16

the two decades leading up to the

8:18

French and Indian War, England

8:20

and France are maneuvering all the time in North America.

8:22

England engaged in several maneuvers that

8:25

were designed to secure

8:27

the cooperation of the former French

8:29

colonies. So for example, in Nova

8:32

Scotia, the British deported between 6,000 and 10,000

8:34

Acadians, which

8:37

were French speaking

8:37

residents. Actually, that happens

8:40

during the French and Indian War from 1755 to 1764. The

8:45

deportees constituted three quarters

8:47

of the Acadians in the area.

8:50

And for logical reasons, it came

8:52

to be known as Le Grand des Ranges

8:54

Montres, or the Great Disturbance.

8:56

And a lot of these Acadians eventually resettled

8:59

in Spanish-held Louisiana, where

9:02

they essentially became the progenitors

9:04

of the Cajun ethnicity. Cajuns,

9:08

derived from

9:09

the French word cadian,

9:12

were looked down upon by Spanish and later

9:14

American leaders and remain largely

9:16

separated from the mainstream. So they actually

9:18

are an entity in and of themselves in

9:21

North America after they're displaced

9:24

and moved

9:24

by the British.

9:26

They have their own dialect of French.

9:29

They have their own distinctive cuisine,

9:32

including, for example, gumbo. They

9:34

also have their own very fiddle heavy musical

9:37

style, which I will bet many of you have

9:39

in your ears now that I've said that.

9:42

And the Cajuns interacted

9:44

closely with Creole populations,

9:46

Louisiana born French and Spanish

9:48

descendants, and also the

9:50

descendants of free Black Americans and

9:53

descendants of enslaved people. So

9:57

obviously the interaction between

10:00

all these peoples is complex

10:03

and deep, profound, the

10:05

ways in which they're exchanging a variety of different things

10:07

including

10:08

culture. So Canada

10:10

ends up playing

10:13

a role in certainly the mindset

10:15

of American colonists during the Revolution

10:19

in two different ways. So first

10:22

the British passed the Quebec

10:24

Act Act of 1774, and they're

10:26

trying to appease French Canadians,

10:29

almost all of whom were Catholic. And

10:32

the Quebec Act, among other things, said

10:34

that it was going to remove references

10:36

to Protestantism from government oaths

10:39

and guarantee the free exercise of

10:41

the religion of the Church of Rome. It

10:43

was going to triple the size of Quebec, and

10:46

it was going to restructure the civil government

10:49

of Quebec to grant the British

10:51

Crown more direct control the

10:54

legislative makeup of Quebec. Now,

10:56

there were aspects of that that

10:58

did not make American

10:59

colonists very

11:01

happy.

11:02

One was the last one,

11:04

which logically enough would bother people, which is

11:07

restructuring the civil government in

11:09

Quebec to give the British crown more direct

11:11

control over the legislative makeup of Quebec.

11:14

Americans were always sensitive

11:17

about that for logical reasons, worried about

11:19

that, watching about that, talking about that.

11:22

It actually has a place in the Declaration

11:24

of Independence, which says, for

11:26

abolishing the free system of English laws

11:29

in a neighboring province, establishing

11:32

therein an arbitrary government and

11:34

enlarging its boundaries so as to render it

11:36

at once an example and fit instrument

11:38

for introducing the same absolute

11:41

rule into these colonies. They're worried.

11:44

The Americans really are not heavy about

11:46

Catholicism. This is not true in every single colony,

11:48

but Americans

11:50

considered it a religion

11:52

that had like a foreign king

11:54

of sorts. There were colonies,

11:57

the colony of Maryland was Catholic friendly,

11:59

but that wasn't it. in the colonies. So for

12:01

more than one reason, Britain

12:04

made the issue of Canada, and particularly

12:07

Quebec, a major issue in the Revolution.

12:09

Here's the Continental Congress talking about the

12:12

fact that Catholicism now is essentially being

12:14

deemed okay. There's an address

12:16

to the people of Great Britain that the Continental Congress

12:19

sent out in 1774, and it says that they cannot, quote,

12:24

suppress our astonishment

12:27

that a British parliament should ever consent

12:29

to establish in that country a

12:31

religion that has deluged

12:33

your island in blood and dispersed impiety,

12:36

bigotry, persecution, murder, and rebellion

12:39

through every part of the world. They're

12:41

not fans.

12:42

I will make a grand understatement.

12:46

Americans are deeply conflicted about Canada, but

12:48

one thing that they are consistent in is

12:51

somehow or other assuming Canada

12:53

wants to be us.

12:55

And that starts right here in

12:57

the revolutionary period when

13:00

there's an assumption, regardless

13:02

of what they said about how scary Catholicism is,

13:05

they assume that Canada

13:08

in one way or another is going to want to

13:10

join the

13:11

other rebelling North American colonies

13:14

and fighting against Great

13:16

Britain. And as a matter of fact,

13:18

in 1775, so really early on

13:20

in the revolution, George Washington

13:23

sent Benedict Arnold, who at this point

13:25

is a great hero, with 1,100 men

13:27

towards Quebec City, armed with a letter

13:30

from Washington, praising the Canadians

13:32

and asking them to join the American cause.

13:35

And

13:35

Washington writes, the British have

13:37

persuaded themselves. They have even dared

13:39

to say that the Canadians were not

13:42

capable of distinguishing between the blessings

13:44

of liberty and

13:45

the wretchedness of slavery, that

13:47

gratifying the vanity of a little circle

13:50

of nobility would blind the

13:52

eyes of the people of Canada.

13:54

such artifices they hoped

13:56

to bend you to their views, but they

13:59

have been deceived. instead of finding

14:01

in you that poverty of soul and

14:03

baseness of spirit, they see

14:05

with a chagrin equal to our joy

14:07

that you are enlightened, generous,

14:11

and virtuous. So the assumption

14:13

on the part of the Americans is, hey,

14:17

you can come join us. You

14:19

can fight with us. I guess that's the most important

14:21

part. You can join us to fight against

14:24

Britain. You're colonies, we're

14:26

colonies, this will be a really useful thing.

14:29

and they're treating you badly, just

14:31

like they're treating us badly.

14:33

What about the whole Catholic thing, though? The

14:35

Catholic thing lingers on. There

14:38

are pamphlets written about the Quebec

14:40

Act along those lines, so it doesn't vanish. But

14:43

now we're in a moment of war,

14:45

and Americans are saying, why can't you join us to fight?

14:49

The Canadian colonies say, excellent,

14:51

we'd love to be part of you, right? It's

14:54

a Heatherism. And

14:57

everything was hunky-dory from

14:59

then on. No, indeed,

15:02

that's not the way things

15:02

go. There is, Washington

15:05

does send these troops, along with

15:07

Benedict Arnold and General

15:10

Richard Montgomery up to Canada

15:12

to kind of just take things over, seize

15:15

Canada, free them and

15:18

make them free like the rest of the North American

15:20

colonies. When I teach this,

15:22

what I jokingly say, both

15:25

throughout part of my American Revolution course

15:27

and in the beginning of my Early National America

15:29

course is Free Canada,

15:32

Free Canada, which is the

15:33

underlying message of

15:36

a lot of what's going on here. So

15:38

there is ultimately fighting

15:41

in Canada and actually General

15:44

Richard Montgomery, sent by Washington, is

15:46

ultimately killed. One

15:48

thing that results from this, oddly enough,

15:51

is Aaron Burr becomes a hero.

15:54

Apparently he's a small man and Richard

15:56

Montgomery is a large man. Aaron

15:59

Burr pulls my-

16:00

his body

16:01

from the field when

16:03

he's shot and becomes

16:05

this grand war hero

16:08

and is lauded for that forever after.

16:10

So we have Canada to thank in

16:13

some ways for Aaron Burr. He

16:16

has a big moment in Canada.

16:18

At any rate, Canada does not obviously

16:20

become part of the United States. And as a matter of fact,

16:23

a large number of British

16:25

loyalists, potentially some 50,000 loyalists

16:29

flee to Canada, and not only that,

16:32

but a good number of formerly enslaved

16:34

and free Black Americans who

16:37

sided with the British also, rather

16:39

than heading south, head north,

16:41

and ultimately make their way to Canada

16:44

as well.

16:45

Which makes complete sense that

16:48

really the 13 colonies

16:50

are such a mess, and they're certainly such a mess

16:52

under the Articles of Confederation, that

16:55

if you You are the British government or

16:57

loyalists hoping to retake control

17:00

of the colonies. What do you do? You

17:02

pull back to the West and you pull back to Canada and

17:04

you wait for the country to tear itself apart.

17:06

And it certainly looks like it's going to in the early years.

17:09

Sure, a number of ways.

17:11

It's not as though this

17:13

revolutionary moment with Canada somehow

17:16

convinces Americans that maybe Canada

17:18

does not want to be quote unquote freed.

17:21

the War of 1812,

17:23

again, fighting the British

17:26

Americans, it is no surprise

17:29

as to what it is that Americans once

17:31

again think. They basically

17:33

think we can free Canada, we

17:36

can

17:36

go march up there and then go to want to

17:38

join us and everything is going to be wonderful. So

17:41

for example, Thomas Jefferson

17:43

in 1812 writes,

17:45

it's a mere matter of marching

17:49

to get Canada. It's all we gotta do. We

17:51

just have to march.

17:53

They want to be with us. Who

17:55

in their right mind would want to stay

17:57

part of the British Empire? this

17:59

does not

18:00

happen either. But this ongoing

18:02

American assumption

18:04

that the Canadians want to be freed

18:06

and want to be no longer enslaved

18:09

to Great Britain, but instead want to

18:11

be part of the United States, to me

18:13

is always fascinating because it's so

18:15

long-lived. It goes on forever.

18:18

And it really says something about more

18:20

than about how the Americans think of Canada, how

18:22

the Americans think about themselves.

18:24

Yes, and that is a terrific transition

18:27

to the 19th century, when,

18:29

I love this fact here,

18:32

when the United States fights a war

18:34

with Canada. The

18:36

state of Maine actually went to war

18:38

with Canada between 1838 and 1839. And

18:42

of course, they're not war with Canada, they're war

18:45

with at the time the United Kingdom, because

18:47

Canada is still very much a part of that. But after the War of 1812,

18:51

when the British had pushed into what

18:53

is now what is now the northern point of Maine.

18:56

And after that treaty that ended the War

18:58

of 1812, it was really not

19:00

clear where the boundary was between Maine

19:02

and Canada. And tempers ran

19:04

very hot over that border. And

19:07

very briefly in 1838 and 1839, Maine massed troops. I

19:12

mean, I think there was about a thousand people on

19:14

the border to go to war to establish

19:17

a boundary. And when in fact,

19:19

England and the United

19:22

States It was actually

19:24

Daniel Webster put together

19:26

the final boundary between Maine

19:29

and Canada in the Webster-Ashburton

19:31

Treaty. The Mainters

19:33

were furious. They really thought they

19:35

had been sold out

19:37

because the boundary was much further north

19:39

than they wanted it to be. They wanted it to go all

19:41

the way up almost to the St. Lawrence River. So

19:44

that sense of the government

19:47

has sold us out. And if you

19:49

think about when the Webster-Ashburton

19:51

Treaty happened, which was

19:53

in 1842, and then you think

19:55

about the other major issue

19:58

with boundaries between the United States.

20:00

in Canada, which is the boundary that cuts

20:02

across the northwestern part of the United States,

20:05

which is the boundary that's negotiated

20:07

in 1846 under the Polk administration.

20:10

Polk got elected on the concept that

20:12

we were going to go all the way to 5440 or fight. That's

20:16

what that's about.

20:17

He was going to go to 5440 and fight

20:19

against Canada, and he was going to take Mexico.

20:22

And as soon as he gets in office, he establishes

20:25

the boundary between the United States and Canada

20:27

on the 49th parallel, nowhere near 5440 or

20:30

fight, and then turns around and says, oh yeah, but

20:32

let's go to war for Mexico. And

20:34

Northerners, especially people on

20:37

that tier of Maine and

20:39

the New England states, are like, wait a minute, what

20:41

is going on here with this federal

20:44

government that keeps promising they're

20:46

going to give us more land up here and

20:48

then selling us out so they

20:50

can go give more land to the Southerners? So

20:53

that stress between the United States

20:55

and Canada pushes through into

20:57

the 19th century during the Civil War.

21:01

Confederates sometimes go up into Canada

21:04

and have come down from Canada into

21:06

the United States, into Vermont, for example.

21:08

St. Albans, Vermont has a very famous raid

21:10

by the Confederates. But

21:13

people in the United States get really angry

21:15

at Canada because they believe that

21:18

the British government in Canada, which is sympathetic

21:20

to the Confederates, is arming

21:23

indigenous

21:23

Americans, especially those in

21:25

Minnesota, to fight against

21:28

the United States at a very time when the

21:30

existence of the United States is under huge

21:32

pressure. So in the middle of the

21:34

19th century then, there was a sense among a number

21:37

of leading politicians that

21:39

eventually the entire North

21:41

American continent is going to come under the purview

21:43

of the United States. And one of the key figures

21:45

of that is William Henry Seward.

21:48

Seward, when there was first the

21:50

question of the line between Oregon

21:53

and

21:54

the United States, he said,

21:56

let the Oregon question be settled when it may.

21:59

It will nevertheless. come back again, our

22:01

population is destined to roll

22:03

its restless wave to the icy

22:06

barriers of the north and to encounter

22:08

oriental civilization on the shores

22:11

of the Pacific.

22:12

It's all ours. It's

22:14

all ours. And what's key about that is

22:16

it's not just Canada.

22:18

He's also looking to Asia as well. So

22:21

when Abraham Lincoln

22:23

becomes president in 1861, he makes Seward Secretary of

22:25

State And

22:29

Seward serves in that role through the end

22:31

of President Andrew Johnson's

22:33

tenure in 1869. And

22:36

while he's in that role, not surprisingly,

22:39

much in line with the United States generally

22:42

in this period, he pushes

22:44

an expansionist view,

22:46

expansionist policies

22:48

regarding Canada. And

22:50

he first tries to negotiate with

22:52

the British to annex British

22:55

Columbia, which at the time was in financial

22:58

trouble, had government instability, and I

23:00

suppose seemed likely to

23:02

fall in line. AMT. And has

23:05

spectacular ports. I mean,

23:07

we're back to the ports here. AMT. Back to the ports. AMT. And

23:10

Asia. AMT. So Seward actually goes

23:12

so far as to argue that the

23:14

British should give up

23:17

the ports, essentially, but to

23:19

give up significant land in the west

23:21

of Canada as some sort

23:23

of reparations for the Alabama claims. The

23:26

Alabama claims were the settlement of

23:29

claims that the United States made against

23:32

England after

23:33

it had let Confederates

23:35

use British shipyards in order

23:37

to create warships that were really

23:40

damaging during the Civil War, especially

23:42

along the Atlantic coast

23:45

and especially to Maine. And while they're

23:47

trying to push that argument,

23:49

Russian Minister to Washington in

23:51

February of 1867 told Seward

23:53

that the United States could buy Alaska

23:56

if they wanted it. But Seward

23:59

moves to buy a lot of money.

24:00

really quickly, the Senate approves

24:02

that sale for $7.2 million in April of 1867. So

24:06

now, just as Seward is signing

24:09

the Alaska Treaty, England

24:11

Queen Victoria is agreeing to

24:13

the union of four Eastern Canadian

24:16

provinces, Newfoundland, Ontario,

24:19

which was then called the Province of Canada, Quebec,

24:21

and Nova Scotia. And the Confederation

24:24

system incorporates the provinces into

24:26

a parliamentary government that would collaborate

24:29

with, and I suppose

24:30

still ultimately answer to England,

24:32

but which would allow for unified

24:35

policies and a more unified

24:38

culture. And not surprisingly,

24:40

this new Canadian confederation leads

24:43

to a swell of nationalism

24:45

among Canadians across

24:48

the Dominion. So for example,

24:50

Alexander Gault, who is one

24:52

of the The Fathers of the Proposal

24:54

and the Confederation's First Minister of

24:57

Finance says, rather aggressively,

25:00

if the United States desires to outflank

25:02

us on the West, we must

25:04

lay our hands on British Columbia and

25:06

the Pacific Ocean. The country

25:09

cannot be surrounded by

25:11

the United States.

25:13

So in the end, rather

25:16

than staying with Seward's vision,

25:18

the Canadian Confederation grows

25:20

in coming years to incorporate

25:23

Western Canadian provinces with British Columbia

25:26

joining in 1871. So it comes out of

25:28

this with a new stronger

25:30

sense of itself. But

25:31

then all of a sudden,

25:34

Canada becomes a cool place for draft

25:36

dodgers. And this

25:38

is one of the things that I think is so interesting is

25:40

how we got

25:42

to

25:42

that place and the,

25:44

in a sense, the cultural meaning of

25:47

Canada for the United States,

25:49

instead of simply the political meaning, the

25:52

self-definition against each other changes

25:55

really, really dramatically

25:57

in the 20th century. And that story,

25:59

it's. is, I think, a really interesting

26:02

one.

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For more cafe history content,

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27:59

David Kerlin. you can receive the

28:01

Time Machine articles through the free Cafe Brief

28:03

email. Sign up

28:05

at cafe.com slash Brief. This

28:10

brings us to Pierre Trudeau,

28:14

who is born to French Catholics in Montreal in 1919. His

28:17

father was a wealthy real estate investor, and

28:19

he attends the Université de Montréal Law

28:21

School, goes

28:24

to Harvard's grad school of public affairs,

28:26

and he's a real estate investor. grad

28:29

school of public administration. In 1949,

28:33

he backed minors during a strike in, it's

28:36

actually asbestos Quebec, which gave

28:39

me pause when I first read that, but

28:41

it is indeed asbestos Quebec. He

28:44

wrote a book decrying the anti-labor

28:46

actions of

28:46

the Canadian government and continued

28:49

to write liberal political writings

28:51

throughout the 1950s in

28:54

a journal that he co-founded Cite

28:56

Libre and becomes an influential

28:58

law professor at his Montreal

29:00

alma mater. Now he's elected

29:02

to parliament in 1965 in

29:05

Prime Minister Lester Pearson's administration.

29:08

And two years later,

29:10

Pearson made Trudeau the nation's

29:12

minister of justice, which is

29:14

roughly equivalent to the American attorney

29:17

general. And while in that position,

29:20

sort of along the lines of what he's already been doing,

29:22

he pushes sweeping reforms.

29:25

He legalizes lotteries.

29:28

He

29:29

offers some access to abortion. He

29:32

eases divorce stipulations and

29:35

gives legal recognition to gay Canadians.

29:38

So in April of 1968, Pearson resigns and

29:42

Trudeau wins an election to replace him as

29:44

prime minister. Now, look

29:46

at the timing. 1968, April 1968.

29:48

You

29:52

think about what America's going through in 68. It

29:55

starts in January with

29:57

the Tet Offensive.

29:58

It goes into.

30:00

the assassination of Martin

30:02

Luther King Jr. in April of 1968, and soon

30:05

we're going to have the assassination

30:07

of Robert Kennedy, and then after the assassination

30:10

of Kennedy, we're going to have the election of Richard Nixon.

30:13

So in 1968,

30:15

Americans are looking at

30:17

the reassertion

30:20

of a really sort of Nixon's

30:22

law and order campaign, his desire

30:25

to reestablish that they're not

30:27

going to be those crazy people out

30:29

in California really straight-laced,

30:32

if you will, the reassertion of what in 1970,

30:34

the Time magazine

30:37

is going to call middle Americans.

30:40

And they define middle Americans essentially as Goldwaterites

30:42

who don't like any of the revolutions of the

30:44

1960s, don't like any of these things, or

30:47

want to move back really to the 1950s. And

30:50

at the same time, Canada

30:52

elects Trudeau. Now,

30:55

Trudeau, he

30:57

presents a strong image when

30:59

he's prime minister. He's a bachelor

31:02

when he takes office and he

31:05

makes some waves with his love

31:07

life.

31:08

He dates Barbara Streisand, who apparently

31:10

had recently separated from actor Elliot

31:13

Gould. And this happens in the early

31:15

months of his tenure as prime minister.

31:18

Then in March of 1971, the 51-year-old Trudeau

31:20

married 22-year-old Vancouverite Margaret Sinclair.

31:26

She's the daughter of a powerful politician,

31:28

but she becomes a global celebrity

31:30

in her

31:31

own right. And she parties at

31:33

Studio 54, she hangs

31:35

out with the Rolling Stones, she supposedly

31:38

had affairs with a number of

31:40

famous Hollywood celebrities

31:43

and political folk. Now

31:45

it's not as though when he's prime minister, all

31:48

he's doing is dating and

31:50

fueling Trudomania. There actually are pretty

31:53

significant political issues happening during

31:55

his tenure. For example, there's a separatist

31:58

movement which reaches... It's

32:00

Zenith while Trudeau

32:02

is in office in October

32:04

of 1970. This is

32:06

a group that wants Quebecois independence.

32:10

And ultimately this group,

32:12

the FLQ, the Fronte deliberation

32:14

du Quebec, kidnaps

32:17

two high ranking British Canadian officials,

32:19

kills one and Trudeau

32:22

has to initiate a crackdown ultimately

32:24

to stop them. So although he may

32:26

be glamorous initially bachelor and

32:28

then newly married man, there

32:30

are important political things happening

32:33

during his tenure.

32:34

So again, this is really interesting. I do remember

32:37

it because of course it was a big deal in Maine,

32:39

you know, what was gonna happen with the Quebec Quas. But

32:42

most Americans in fact were paying attention

32:45

to Trudeau and Canada

32:47

in this era for a different

32:49

reason than that. And that is

32:51

that Trudeau is also overseeing

32:53

the arrival of about 100,000 American draft resistors who

32:57

fled to Canada to avoid serving in the Vietnam

32:59

War. So the contrast

33:02

for that generation between

33:04

what was happening in America in

33:06

the 1960s and 1970s and

33:08

what was happening in Canada, I think really

33:11

changed the way Americans thought about Canada.

33:14

So on March 25th of 1969, Trudeau visited Nixon in

33:18

the White House and he spoke at the Washington

33:20

Press Club and made a number of controversial

33:22

comments, including supporting

33:24

the draft evaders had fled to Canada and

33:27

had enrolled in universities in Canada.

33:29

He said, Their presence has

33:31

been felt. They have aroused a

33:34

great deal of sympathy on the Canadian

33:36

campuses. By and large, they

33:38

have proved to be good students,

33:41

orderly students, and much

33:43

of their attitude I believe is dictated

33:46

by reasons of conscience rather than by

33:48

any desire to upset

33:51

a particular order of things.

33:53

It's a real slap directly at Nixon's

33:55

characterization of them as being troublemakers

33:58

and being people who were deliberately...

34:00

trying to undermine society. He

34:02

also made a statement really

34:04

drawing a line between what the United States

34:07

was and what Canada was at this

34:09

moment in a different way. He said,

34:11

Living next to you is in some ways like

34:14

sleeping with an elephant. No

34:16

matter how friendly or even temperate is

34:18

the beast, if I can call it that, one

34:21

is affected by every twitch and grunt.

34:33

Not surprisingly, the relationship

34:35

between Nixon and Trudeau became decidedly

34:38

strained as Trudeau fiercely

34:41

opposed the Vietnam War and even

34:43

considered pushing Canada to leave the

34:45

North Atlantic Treaty Organization, that is

34:47

NATO. He issued a

34:49

scathing denunciation of the

34:51

December 1972 Christmas bombings

34:54

in Vietnam, which was designed to

34:56

push the North Vietnamese back to the negotiating

34:58

table and that killed more than 1,600 civilians.

35:02

Nixon and Trudeau also fought as

35:04

Nixon became increasingly protectionist

35:06

over trade. So in

35:08

a White House visit in 1971,

35:11

Trudeau extended his elephant remarks

35:13

and urged Nixon to bring Canada into

35:16

any economic decision making.

35:18

The conversation was not known until it was released

35:20

in 2008. But Trudeau

35:22

said to Nixon, if you're gonna be protectionist,

35:25

let's be in it together. I'm not a nationalist,

35:28

I'm not a protectionist. If you're going

35:30

to take a very protectionist trend, our

35:32

whole economy is so importantly tied

35:34

to yours, we'd have to make some

35:37

very fundamental decisions.

35:39

After Trudeau's departure, Nixon

35:42

called him, quote, a pompous egghead,

35:45

and, quote, a clever son

35:47

of a bitch. That's just very Nixon sounding.

35:50

Before ordering his chief of staff, H.R.

35:52

Haldeman, to plant a critical

35:54

story about Trudeau in a syndicated

35:57

column.

35:58

One more note on. the Nixon-Trudoe

36:01

relationship. Nixon visited Ottawa

36:03

in April of 1972

36:06

in the middle of what was a rather icy moment

36:08

between Nixon and Trudeau, and at a gala

36:11

at the National Arts Center, Nixon

36:13

offered a kind of surreal moment

36:15

in just an offhand comment

36:17

that he made, referring

36:19

to Trudeau's four-month-old

36:22

son, Justin, at the time.

36:25

Nixon said, tonight,

36:27

we'll dispense with the formalities. I'd like

36:29

to toast the future Prime Minister of Canada,

36:32

Justin Pierre

36:33

Trudeau.

36:35

And there you go.

36:36

Trudeau served for almost 16 years before

36:39

he retired in 1984. And notably

36:42

in 1982, he's the person

36:44

who accomplished the formal end of British control

36:46

over Canada, known as the Constitution Act

36:49

for Canada, which gave Canadians

36:51

broad base control over their own domestic

36:53

rights and foreign policy. But what really

36:56

interests me about that moment is,

36:58

as you say, Joanne, the degree to which Americans

37:01

define themselves against Canada.

37:03

And in this case, define Canada as

37:06

what

37:07

many Americans wish America could have

37:09

been in that moment. And that idea

37:12

of Canada as a welcoming,

37:15

tolerant,

37:17

liberal democracy at

37:19

a time when the opposite was happening in America,

37:22

I think first of all created an image for a lot

37:24

of Americans about what Canada is. but

37:27

it also got imported to the United

37:29

States with music. I would

37:31

be curious what you have to say about this Heather. So on the one

37:33

hand, absolutely, that

37:36

this Canadian view

37:38

of itself, and I suppose also of

37:40

the United States, is being beamed into the United

37:42

States through music. But

37:45

I kind of wonder how the United States received

37:48

and interpreted that kind of message.

37:50

And I mentioned that only because

37:52

Canadian author Margaret Atwood

37:54

once referred to the US-Canadian border

37:56

as, the longest one-way mirror

37:59

in the world.

38:00

meaning that Canadians look through the mirror

38:02

and see the United States, and that the United States looks

38:04

at that mirror and only sees itself. I'm

38:07

curious as to what we're

38:08

gonna say we feel as we talk here

38:10

about this important way in which Canada

38:13

sort of imported itself into the United States.

38:16

What I was referring to is something like the

38:18

Guess Who's American Woman from 1970, which

38:21

is, again, the vision

38:24

of a certain part of the United States

38:26

society.

38:27

It's a critique of America. And for, I

38:30

think, in this era, a lot of Americans who

38:32

were disappointed with the direction that the United

38:34

States was taking under Richard Nixon looked to Canada

38:36

and thought, oh, that's paradise

38:39

up there. You know, it really was not

38:41

necessarily about what Canada really was, so much

38:43

of what Americans wanted America

38:45

to be.

38:46

So that actually does fall in line with the one-way

38:48

mirror, right? Americans in one way or another,

38:50

whether it's something they like, well, in this case, because

38:53

it's something they like, and that they would

38:55

like America to be, they essentially

38:57

are seeing themselves. in looking

38:59

at Canada.

39:00

And really dramatically, the Guess Who's

39:02

American Woman in 1970, at the same

39:04

time that Time Magazine is talking about how,

39:07

you know, the people of the year, the middle

39:09

Americans who are essentially Goldwaterites,

39:12

the Guess Who is arriving and saying, you

39:14

know... You gotta let me do this. Okay, go ahead. You

39:16

gotta let me do this, because this is such a good song. When

39:19

we were talking about this and preparing for the episode,

39:21

that's gotta be the case with some of you out there having the same

39:23

experience. What went into my head was,

39:26

American Woman Yeah

39:29

American Woman Said

39:32

get away American

39:35

Woman Listen

39:37

what I say Don't

39:40

come hanging around my door Don't

39:43

want to see your face no more I

39:45

don't need your war machines I

39:48

don't need your ghetto scenes

39:53

That's a really powerful rock song,

39:55

which interestingly, some

39:57

members of the band said And it was.

40:00

intended to be political, but

40:02

other members of the band said it most certainly was

40:04

intended. Come on, Randy Bachman said it was entirely

40:07

about politics and how, I mean, it was certainly

40:09

understood that way when it came

40:12

out.

40:12

Randy Bachman was the guitarist of Guess

40:14

Who and later, of course, founded Bachman Turner Overdrive.

40:17

And he said, you know, this was about

40:19

looking at America in this particular period.

40:22

And when Tricia Nixon invited the Guess

40:24

Who to play at one of her of her White House parties

40:27

in July of 1970, the

40:29

Nixon staff expressly forbade

40:31

them to play American Woman. So

40:34

I'm guessing it really wasn't about how

40:36

nice Canadian girls were.

40:39

All right, whatever reason the group wrote

40:41

the song, it is certainly

40:43

the way it was taken. In fact, when

40:46

we were looking at the prep for this episode

40:48

and I saw somebody tried to say it was

40:50

about how nice Canadian women were, I

40:53

was like, really? Like, because

40:56

I was like eight in 1970, and

40:58

even I listened to that song and I'm like, oh,

41:01

wow, you know? Wow, they're saying something. I know exactly

41:03

what's going on here. I have to just throw

41:06

one last factoid about this song only

41:08

because if we're talking about the reflection

41:11

and implication of the United States and Canada

41:13

through music, guess

41:14

what happens to the song American Women

41:17

in 2015? It's

41:19

being used to sell Nike sneakers. So

41:23

America ultimately takes it and says,

41:25

well, that's a great song. I don't really care about what it says.

41:28

It's about American women.

41:29

And now I'm speechless. But

41:32

of course, Neil Young was a Canadian

41:34

as well, who had a great amount of effect on American

41:36

politics through his many

41:39

songs about Canada. He

41:41

came originally from Ontario and

41:43

spoke a lot about what Canada

41:46

meant and sort of the dream of Canada.

41:50

There is a town

41:53

in North Ontario

41:56

it'd be 3

42:00

But, of course, they

42:02

were also powerful voices

42:08

with songs like

42:10

Ohio.

42:26

Four

42:30

Dead in Ohio about the shooting at Kent

42:32

State in May of 1970. So that

42:34

moment in the 1960s in Trudeau

42:37

and the 1970s and what that came to

42:39

mean to America

42:41

through people like Neil Young and through

42:43

people like Joni Mitchell, who also

42:45

is Canadian and is

42:47

creating a critique of American society

42:50

as well as the image

42:52

of Canada as sort

42:55

of a paradise.

42:58

On the back of a cartoon

43:01

coaster In

43:04

a blue TV screen

43:06

light I

43:09

drew an apple Canada, oh Canada

43:18

With your face sketched

43:21

on it twice

43:24

for Gordon Lightfoot as well.

43:26

Nostalgic, but also sort

43:28

of sunlit,

43:30

what we're not. And I have to

43:32

say in terms of Gordon Lightfoot,

43:35

I had a fascinating experience

43:37

recently where Patterson Hood of

43:39

the Drive-By Truckers said that Gordon

43:41

Lightfoot's

43:43

record of the Edmunds Fitzgerald was one of his absolute

43:45

favorite songs and had really shaped the way

43:47

he thought about music.

43:49

At seven p.m. a main

43:51

hatchway gave in, It's

43:53

been good to know you The

43:58

Captain Wired In He had water

44:01

coming in and the good shipping

44:03

crew was in peril. Later

44:07

that night when his lights went out of

44:09

sight, came the wreck of the Edmond

44:11

Fitzgerald.

44:22

And I would not in my wildest

44:24

dreams have put the

44:26

Canadian balladeer Gordon

44:28

Lightfoot in the same sentence

44:31

as one

44:32

of the front men for the sort

44:34

of Southern rock band, The Drive

44:36

By Truckers. And yet that's when he

44:38

grew up. So that's what you heard. heard

44:40

these Canadian singers on the radio

44:43

in the early 70s, and they had a huge

44:45

effect on the way people thought about the

44:47

United States and also about Canada. So

44:50

in a way, this brings us back to

44:53

the place we started, in that

44:55

in 1975, the band, which is

44:59

originally formed in Ontario

45:01

in 1967, recorded

45:04

an

45:04

album called Northern Lights,

45:07

Southern and on that album,

45:09

they had Acadian Driftwood. And

45:11

Acadian Driftwood is, first of all, one

45:14

of our producers' favorite songs. Shout

45:16

out to you here, David. And in the

45:19

song, the songwriter and

45:21

the guitarist, Robbie Robertson

45:23

and Levon Helm, who's

45:25

the drummer, and the pianist Richard Manuel, and

45:29

also the bassist Rick Danko, all take

45:31

turns singing the melody.

45:34

And the lyrics actually

45:37

were inspired by a poem that

45:40

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote in 1847

45:45

about the Acadians, about the people

45:47

who were forced out of Nova

45:49

Scotia into what is now Louisiana.

45:52

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow writes his poem in 1847, Evangeline,

45:57

which details how young Evangeline

45:59

is looking for her lost lover, Gabriel,

46:02

during the great displacement

46:04

from Nova Scotia into

46:07

what is now Louisiana. And it evokes

46:09

this paradise, it evokes this lost

46:12

paradise. Longfellow writes, he

46:14

who believes in affection that

46:17

hopes and endures and is patient,

46:20

ye who believe in the beauty and

46:22

strength of women's devotion,

46:24

list to the mournful traditions

46:27

still sung by the pines of the forest,

46:30

list to a tale of love and acuity,

46:33

home of the happy. And

46:35

in 1975, in Acadian Driftwood,

46:37

the band picked that song up.

46:44

Acadian Driftwood,

46:47

gypsy tail wind,

46:51

they call my home,

46:54

the land of snow. Canadian

46:58

cold front, moving

47:00

in What

47:03

a way to ride cold,

47:05

what a way to go Something

47:15

that strikes me now,

47:18

particularly about this music and we're hearing all

47:20

of these lyrics from Canadians

47:23

or Americans who were at one point

47:25

Canadians, we started out talking

47:27

about the need to

47:29

recharge or repair the relationship

47:32

between the United States and Canada. And we talked

47:34

about all of the policy issues accompanied

47:37

by

47:38

President Biden's trip to

47:40

Canada. But,

47:41

you know, based on everything we've said here

47:43

today, in addition to the very real politic,

47:45

diplomatic, political policy reasons

47:48

why the two countries need to

47:51

be in line or at least in conversation

47:54

with each other. The fact that their

47:56

neighbors, family, and friends

47:58

so close...

48:00

to each other and often entangled

48:02

and not necessarily in line,

48:04

angry at one another, in some ways, particularly Canada,

48:07

asserting itself as not necessarily

48:09

being the United States.

48:11

It's all a reminder about the ways in

48:13

which the Canadian-American relationship

48:16

is really important and Americans probably

48:18

don't think about it very much because of

48:21

that one-way mirror. They see themselves

48:23

when they look to Canada, and they shouldn't.

48:30

Our conversation continues for

48:32

members of Cafe Insider. Heather

48:34

and I take you behind the scenes of each

48:37

episode in a special segment of

48:39

Now and Then that we call

48:40

Backstage. So join

48:42

us Backstage and get an inside

48:44

look at the thoughts we're wrestling with as we prep

48:47

for our weekly conversations. to

48:49

cafe.com slash history to

48:51

join. That's cafe.com

48:54

slash history.

48:58

That's it for this episode of Now and Then. If

49:01

you like what we do, please rate

49:03

and review the show on Apple Podcasts

49:06

or wherever you get your podcasts. It

49:08

makes a big difference in helping people find

49:11

the show. Your hosts are Joanne

49:13

Freeman and Heather Cox Richardson. The

49:16

executive producer is Tamara Sepper. The

49:19

editorial producer is David Kirlander.

49:22

The audio producer is Matthew Billy. The

49:24

now and then theme music was composed by Nat

49:26

Wiener. The Cafe team

49:28

is Adam Waller, David Tattershore,

49:31

Sam Ozer-Staton, Noah Azalei,

49:34

and Jake Kaplan. Now and

49:36

Then is presented by Cafe and

49:38

the Vox Media Podcast Network.