Blackwell Reference Online

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President Franklin Roosevelt's trip to Quebec City on July 31, 1936 was noteworthy for three reasons. First, FDR was just the second sitting president, after Warren Harding, to visit Canada. Second, FDR's public speech drew roars when he averred that Canadians and Americans never called each other foreigners. Minutes later, commenting privately that some US Senators favored military intervention if Japan attacked British Columbia, FDR asked Prime Minister W. L. M. King to build a highway across western Canada so that US troops could speed to Alaska if the United States and Japan fought ( Perras 1999 : 20–1). The Quebec crowd's enthusiasm prompted historian C. P. Stacey to say that FDR was the first president to be “genuinely popular in Canada” because “he has contrived to make Canadians feel that he is interested in and friendly to their country” ( Stacey 1940 : 29). But King, hitherto reluctant to bolster a moribund military, quickly backed the largest peacetime defense budget to that point in Canada's history, as US “protection” would end Canada's independence ( Perras 1999 : 21). King also killed a trade deal in 1948, as “it was the secret aim of every American leader, including Franklin Roosevelt, to dominate Canada and ultimately to possess the country” ( Perras 1999 : 123). This chapter emphasizes four subjects: the FDR–King relationship; trade; defense and diplomacy in the ... log in or subscribe to read full text