The Eighties in America - Salem Press (2009)

good atmosphere. Canadian athletes did better than
in 1982, standing second in the medals table behind
England. Milt Ottey won the high-jump competition
for the second time; Ben Johnson won the 100-meter
dash and helped the 4 × 100-meter relay team win.
Canada did especially well in boxing and wrestling,
taking home six gold medals in boxing and nine out
of the ten awarded in wrestling.

Impact Canada continued to forge a separate iden-
tity as a member of the British Commonwealth in the
1980’s, especially following passage of the Canada
Act of 1982, which patriated the nation’s constitu-
tion and made it fully sovereign. The country also
continued to attract students and immigrants from a
large number of other Commonwealth countries,
particularly India, Pakistan, and Caribbean nations.
Trends in Canadian trade favored the United States
rather than the Commonwealth, as the percentage
of Canadian trade conducted with the Americans
increased and the percentage conducted with Com-
monwealth countries decreased. Canada nevertheless
maintained financial links to the Commonwealth,
especially in the aid it provided to the Common-
wealth’s developing nations.

Further Reading
Francis, R. Douglas, Richard Jones, and Donald B.
Smith.Destinies: Canadian Histor y Since Confedera-
tion.5th ed. Toronto: Harcourt Brace Canada,

2004. This second volume of a two-volume history
      of Canada provides a thorough overview of the
      nation’s development since 1867.
      Hillmer, Norman, and J. L. Granatstein.Empire to
      Umpire: Canada and the World to the 1990’s.To-
      ronto: University of Toronto Press, 1994. One of
      the Canada in the World series, it serves as an ex-
      haustive study of Canada’s foreign relations in the
      1980’s.
      McIntyre, W. David.A Guide to the Contemporar y Com-
      monwealth.New York: Palgrave, 2001. Includes a
      succinct section on the Commonwealth’s back-
      ground, as well as sections on voluntary organiza-
      tions, sporting links, and business connections.
      David Barratt

See also Canada Act of 1982; Foreign policy of
Canada; Mulroney, Brian; Trudeau, Pierre.

Canada and the United States

Definition Diplomatic and economic relations

between Canada and the United States

In the 1980’s, U.S.-Canadian relations underwent a revo-

lutionar y shift, as Pierre Trudeau’s government, which

was less than accommodating to U.S. interests, ended, and

the United States found Brian Mulroney’s new ministr y to

be more open to compromise.

The relationship between the United States and

Canada is among the closest and most extensive in

the world. It is reflected in the staggering volume of

bilateral trade between the two countries, the equiv-

alent of $1.2 billion a day in goods, services, and

investment income. In addition, more than 200 mil-

lion people cross the U.S.-Canadian border each

year. In contexts ranging from law-enforcement

cooperation to environmental cooperation to free

trade, the two countries work closely on multiple

levels, from federal to local.

During the 1980’s, the relationship between the

two nations was influenced by the revolutionary na-

ture of a decade that began with an escalation of the

Cold War and ended with the toppling of the Berlin

Wall and the imminent collapse of the Soviet Union.

Early in the decade, during Pierre Trudeau’s minis-

try, U.S.-Canadian relations were somewhat tense.

In the decade’s second half, during Brian Mulro-

ney’s ministry, the two nations concluded a free

trade agreement, and in 1989 Canada was admitted

as a member of the Organization of American States.

The Mulroney government endorsed the George

H. W. Bush administration’s invasion of Panama in

December, 1989, and Canada would later partici-

pate enthusiastically in the U.S.-led alliance in the

Persian Gulf War of 1991.

Diplomatic Initiatives The tensions over the Tru-

deau government’s National Energy Program (NEP)

and Canadian screening of foreign investment had

eased by the time Trudeau left office in 1984. His re-

placement, Liberal finance minister John Turner,

held office for only weeks before Brian Mulroney’s

Conservative Party drove the Liberals from power in

Ottawa. Mulroney’s arrival and President Ronald

Reagan’s reelection were part of a more general in-

ternational trend toward the political right that ush-

ered in a period of mostly harmonious U.S.-Cana-

dian relations, as Reagan’s Republican government

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Canada and the United States The Eighties in America