Invisible and Inaudible in Washington: American Policies Toward Canada

by Edelgard Mahant, Graeme S. Mount

How does the United States view Canada? As a country too unimportant to deserve any defined policy, or one that is to be used simply to complement the U.S. mission in the world? This book investigates the gap between Canadian perceptions of American policy toward Canada and actual U.S. policy. Mahant and Mount examine details of White House policy from 1945 to the 1980s to assess the extent to which the United States could be said to have had a Canada policy. They use a large number of cases dealing with political and economic issues to illustrate their arguments, concluding that for the most part Canada has been unimportant in Washington. In so doing, they challenge the popular nationalist view that Canada has been treated as peripheral and dependent, and the impression that Canadian advice has been respected and taken into account by Washington.

252 pages, Paperback

First published April 20, 1999