question whether conscription might be allowed
when the government thought it essential had
resulted in a 72 per cent ‘no’ vote in Quebec and
an 80 per cent ‘yes’ vote in English-speaking
Canada. Not until November 1944 were con-
scripts sent to fight overseas. In the elections of
1945 King nevertheless survived, beating both
main opposition parties, the Co-operative Com-
monwealth Federation to the left and the
Progressive Conservatives to the right. In 1948,
suffering from ill health, he handed over the pre-
miership to a French-Canadian Liberal Louis
Stephen St Laurent, as firm a believer in main-
taining Dominion power as Mackenzie King. The
economic boom that continued and the success
of the federal government held Quebec French
provincial nationalism in check until after St
Laurent’s retirement in 1957 following the
victory of the Progressive Conservative Party in
the June elections, after which John Diefenbaker
became prime minister.
Like the US, Canada turned its back on
pre-war isolationism. Canadian perceptions of
national defences had totally changed in the half
century since 1900. At the turn of the century the
main threat was believed to be the possibility of
an invasion from the US, whose ‘manifest destiny’
might include plans to absorb its northern neigh-
bour. There were even war plans drawn up by the
British War Office which included British land-
ings in New York and Boston in defence of the
Dominion! In reality the US–Canadian frontier
became the first undefended frontier between two
great nations in the modern world, an example
followed in Western Europe only since 1945.
Canada and the US have been indissolubly linked
in the defence of the North American continent
since the agreement reached at Ogdensburg in- The relationship with the US indicates
both close cooperation on the one hand and the
assertion of Canadian independence on the other.
In Lester B. Pearson, external affairs secretary
from 1948 to 1957, Canada contributed a diplo-
mat of world stature to international affairs.
Lester Pearson played a prominent role in the UN
and contributed to its peacekeeping activities.
The award of the Nobel Peace Prize was fitting
recognition for his skill in finding a diplomatic
solution to the Suez Crisis in 1956. He also took
his country into the North Atlantic Treaty
Organisation, Canada being one of the founding
members. Thus the New World came to the
rescue of the Old, completely reversing the impe-
rial relationship.
NATO formed the cornerstone of the West’s
defence in Europe. Greece and Turkey became
members in 1952; but the role of West Germany
remained a sensitive subject, since it could not yet
be envisaged as a full ally of the West. Was it
intended to rearm West Germany and make it a
partner in NATO? No, said the French foreign
minister, Robert Schumann, to the French
Assembly in July 1949:[Germany] has no arms and will have none.... It is inconceivable to France and her allies
that Germany should be permitted to join the
Atlantic Alliance as a nation capable of defend-
ing herself or of contributing to the defence of
other nations.
But history was moving fast. The inconceivable
became fact just five years later in 1954.