Allan Gotlieb: Bring Back The Special Relationship

We are now in the contemporary or fourth era, which might possibly be described as the era of trilateralism. It could also be called a decade-and-a-half of drift. During the "golden period" following the Second World War, our economic relations shifted overwhelmingly to the United States from Britain, and our North American defence relationship deepened. We and the Americans looked at the world in a similar fashion, and worked together to build international organizations and resist threats to peace. Canada made huge defence expenditures -- as high as 40% of the federal budget at one point (compared to less than 10% today). We managed the relationship bilaterally, but with surprisingly few institutions. There was a short-lived attempt at utilizing joint Cabinet committees; but by and large, issues in the world's largest two-way economic relationship were dealt with by ad hoc methods mandated by the president. The period of the special relationship corresponded closely with the period of the Imperial Presidency: Congress was distinctly subordinate to the executive. http://communities.canada.com:80/nationalpost/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2007/08/17/allan-gotlieb-bring-back-the-special-relationship.aspx

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