Just Dummies: Cruise Missile Testing in Canada

Andrew C. Young is an assistant historian at the Canadian War Museum in
Ottawa.

Twenty-three cruise missiles were tested over Canadian territory during
the life of the cruise missile testing program. The political furor that
arose as a result of the testing reinvigorated a moribund peace movement
in Canada in the 1980s. John Clearwater’s study of this episode in
Canadian political and defence history documents the hypocrisy of the
Liberals, who opposed the program while in opposition but continued it
when they came to power in 1993; the struggles of successive governments
in Ottawa to manage the missile testing program in the face of public
opposition; and the actions of social activists, including members of
Direct Action, a so-called peace group that bombed the Toronto-based
Litton plant in 1982.

Throughout its handling of the missile testing program, the federal
government tried to appease the Canadian public while at the same time
living up to its defence commitments to the United States and more
generally to NATO. As Clearwater’s detailed study makes clear,
allowing the Americans to test the cruise missile in Canada was an
attractive alternative to putting up real dollars to rebuild the
chronically underfunded Canadian Forces.