The Defence of Canada: In the Arms of the Empire, 1760-1939

Barry Morton Gough is a professor of History at Wilfrid Laurier
University.

If there ever was anything new to say about the history of Canadian
defence policies, this book purports to say it, but in the end says
little. Let us start where this book began, with journalists in search
of a story. This work grew out of Dyer’s nfb series War, which awoke
the previously unaware to the folly of that state of human affairs;
public acclaim led to a second series, this time a combined nfb/cbc
operation—the Defence of Canada series. Dyer’s television series
came with the last cold blast of the Cold War, just before it died out
with glasnost, perestroika, and national changes in Central and Eastern
Europe. Five years later, both these series would have had poor ratings,
and there would have been no “story.”

Dyer and Viljoen have systematically set about questioning various
assumptions about why Canadians have gone to war and why they have
sought to avoid war. O.D. Skelton and Mackenzie King fare well in these
circumstances, as does R.B. Bennett. Laurier’s naval policy is
sympathetically described, while Borden’s very different scheme is
derided. Underlying the argument is the growing national preoccupation
with self-control of defence measures and international and imperial
affairs. This theme is not new; however, here the broad assumption is
that Canada’s policies ought to be those of a neutral nation. The
authors may claim this, but it denies history and a century of
policy-makers who have realized that nationhood does not exist in a
vacuum, and that prior commitment is one means of avoiding future wars.
Surely World War II demonstrated that. This book is therefore a
misguided, individualistic work on the military and diplomatic aspects
of the Canadian experience. A second volume is anticipated.