Political cartoon published in July 1870 depicts Canada as a child, with Great Britain, represented as Mother Britannia, holding out her protective arms. Uncle Sam, representing the United States, stands on the other side, ready to “grab” the child if it falls. Image from Wikimedia Commons.

US President-elect Donald Trump recently referred to Canada as the “51st State” and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as its “governor.” While on one level, such ridiculous statements are part and parcel of Trump’s political persona, they reveal something deeper about the role that Canada occupies in the American economy and political imagination. This is an issue that the Canadian Marxist historian Stanley B. Ryerson explored in a pamphlet entitled “Why Be a Doormat?” published by the Labor-Progressive Party in 1948.

“Canadians need complete and permanent union with the US… Since Canada has shown that she cannot fiscally operate in today’s world, and since Britain is fiscally impotent, it is up to the US to act.”

So said the millionaire-owned Life magazine in 1948, amid an earlier upsurge of cynical American interest in the Great White North.

Meanwhile, the New York Herald Tribune stated that Canada “contains natural riches comparable to those which we have been exploiting, and still virtually intact… In exchange for our finished goods, we shall be able to call upon her wealth in pulp and paper stock, in lumber, fur and minerals.”

Ryerson writes from a left-nationalist perspective, quoting the above articles to illustrate his point that Washington has no respect for Canadian sovereignty, and the greatest interest in exploiting Canada’s natural resources.

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