Whether we like it or not, anti-Americanism has very deep roots in this country and we're being intellectually dishonest if we try to pretend it was something cooked up by the post-WWII Liberals. It wasn't.
Many things in our history remind Canadians that we have definitely NOT always been "best friends" with the US. From the incursions during the American Revolution, the War of 1812 and the Fenian crisis, at least three generations of white, Anglo-Saxon Canadians grew up fearing the US and fretting about Free Trade and Manifest Destiny or creeping republicanism, before the 19th century was over. Let's not forget what one of the great underlying motivations was for Confederation; for building the CPR; and even sending the NWMP out West: fear of the US encroaching on us. I'll bet that if you look back objectively over our political history, you'll see that every political party, at one time or another, has exploited this innate anti-US sentiment.
While I think that today we worry more about CANUSA economic issues and beating the US
at hockey, we are still not completely easy in our relationship with them. (Although any Canadian in their right mind would not pick any other major world power as a next door neighbour).
As we mature as nation (don't forget, we really only became a "country", as opposed to an autonomous colony, in 1931...), we need to remember that countries don't really have "friends": they have interests. Certainly, no US President who wants to have a political lifespan of any length can ever forget that. The US people (rightly) expect that he will place US interests (often domestic ones-remember Hoover's quote about foreign policy being domestic politics with "...its hat on"), above the desires and needs of foreign countries. Nothing else would be realistic. If we take a look at US political history, we can see an endless back-and forth between isolationism and interventionism, between the desire to engage and the desire to stand clear. All motivated by the national interests of the time. For example, the views of the respective US and Canadian publics in 1914 and 1939, and later again in GWII, were quite different on the idea of whose war to be involved in.
So where does all that leave us?
First, I think we need to stop this silly boy scout idea about "best friends", not least because we've abused it horribly in the area of national security. We want a very good relationship with the US (who wouldn't?) but it needs to be clearly based on recognizing just who has what interests, and just how far either partner is really going to go to accommodate the other's interest that doesn't happen to match, especially where domestic policies are concerned. This soppy " best friends" thinking leads us to make lazy assumptions about the US, then have national hissy fits when the US decides to do something we don't like.
Next, we need to be 100% sure that we never willingly pose a security threat to the US, by act or omission. Our security house has to be in complete and credible order. At the same time, we need to stop moaning endlessly about economic (and thus political) dependence on the US, and dig in very hard to get into emerging markets like China, India, Brazil and (a bit further down the road...) Africa.
And, who knows....if all that happens, a "real" friendship, based on mutual respect and trust, could emerge.
Cheers
