A woman operates heavy equipment along a long production line while men install the mechanical equipment of a ram tank, 1942. Photo courtesy Toronto Public Library.

“It is distressing to see how Canada is facing the fateful set of choices which are now opening. It seems almost as though many Canadians are bent on not facing the issues which demand an answer [at] a moment when the future basis of the country, perhaps its existence as a country, is in the making or unmaking.”

These words, written in 1967, introduce an essay for Canadian Dimension by one of our most renowned Canadian scholars. In the midst of festivities marking the centenary of Canada’s birth, philosopher Charles Taylor published a stark warning of the dangers posed by the drift of political and economic elites towards ever-deeper economic integration with the US economy. He spelled out in detail the troubling ways this trajectory was reducing Canada’s economy to a satellite status with a parasitic relationship to its powerful neighbour to the south.

Taylor raised the spectre of Canada sliding towards a “51st state” status. His only caveat was that the US would probably be content to leave Canada as a weakened satellite or vassal. America’s political culture seemed to have firmly repudiated those late-19th century imperialist voices arguing for aggressive territorial expansion across the North American continent. Even Taylor’s prophetic text could not imagine a distant and dark future in which a US president would be fanning the ideological flames of America’s “manifest destiny.” That menace is now upon us. Is it now too late?

There have been other moments in history when Canada has faced profound trials. My late dad lived through the Great Depression, served in the Army, worked in construction after his service, and voted CCF/NDP throughout his life. Unlike Charles, Elmer never finished high school but did have an uncanny common-sense ability to improvise, innovate and deal with major construction problems he faced. Whenever we talked politics and I would lament our dire economic dependency, he would always point to Canada’s response to global crisis during the 1940s. On the heels of the Great Depression, with a stagnant economy and massive unemployment, Canada’s economy underwent a massive expansion as it mobilized to grapple with the crisis of the Second World War. Factories were built from scratch or retooled to produce ships, planes and munitions. With incredible speed Canada........

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