Dancing Around the Elephant: Creating a Prosperous Canada in an Era of American Dominance, 1957–1973

Extract

Dancing Around the Elephant: Creating a Prosperous Canada in an Era of American Dominance, 1957–1973, Bruce Muirhead, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, pp. 323.

Canadian feelings of anti-Americanism have a long history. Some have suggested that Canada was born more out of a sense of wanting to protect itself from American invaders than with a sense of what it was. The view that Canada is the lesser state is seen in Pierre Trudeau's comment to the Washington Press Gallery in 1969: “Living next to you, is like sleeping with an elephant; no matter how friendly and even-tempered is the beast, one is affected by every twitch and grunt.” The elephant-mouse metaphor has been one of the best ones to describe the relationship between the two nations and is often used by left-leaning Canadian nationalists to illustrate how much weaker Canada is in the partnership.