Canada as Imperial Patsy

On August 4, 1914, when the United Kingdom went to war against Germany, it automatically brought Canada along into the conflict. Twenty-five years later, in September 1939, Britain once again declared war on Germany, but a week elapsed before Canada followed suit. The short interval sent an unmistakable message. After years of steady work to sever the political bonds that tied the country to the imperial motherland, Ottawa had gained control over its external affairs. The 1931 Statute of Westminster in particular had empowered Canada to chart its own course and make its own decisions. But by nearly every measure of power, Canada was so much smaller than the world’s leading states that it could neither set the international agenda nor seize the initiative. In most respects, it had to rely on and respond to its great power allies.

Over the intervening decades, through war and peace...