Canada's Autonomy - Cold War

How was Canada's autonomy affected by the events of the Cold War? In which ways did we assert ourselves to Britain and the United States, and in which ways were we forced to "toe the line" and give in to their influence?

Today's class consisted of a quick review of the Cold War conflicts including Korea and the Suez crisis.

• Korea - First war fought under flag of UN, showed UN willing to take action, millions of Koreans dead - still unresolved conflict, proxy war between USSR and USA, Canada's most "popular war", Korea still divided today between Comm. North and Dem. South
• Suez - Britain/France embarrassed by events - lose influence in Mid East to USSR and USA. Lester Pearson creates idea of peacekeeping as a way of resolving the conflict - war averted and Canada is able to assert itself -refuses to go to war for Britain.

Then, we split up into expert groups and presented on 6 different topics and examined whether or not they were examples of increasing or decreasing Canadian autonomy.

1. Avro Arrow - Canadian missiles that were scrapped for being too expensive, Canada buys American BOMARC missiles - very controversial
2. Cuban Missile Crisis - Canada refuses to support US, stays out of conflict
3. Vietnam War - Canada refuses to support the war, criticizes the US publicly
4. Trudeaumania & Middle Power status - CIDA, middle power, aid and trade
5. End of Trudea Era - SALT, Afghanistan, Moscow Olympics boycott
6. Somalia and Rwanda - Canadian military cover-up of torture of Somali boy, peacekeeping failure by Romeo Dallaire and UN peacekeepers.

Next day we will review the Cuban Revolution, Missile Crisis, and Vietnam War and then review for the cross-grade.