Canadian Annual Review of Politics and Public Affairs, 1994

Graeme S. Mount is a professor of history at Laurentian University. He
is the author of Canada’s Enemies: Spies and Spying in the Peaceable
Kingdom and The History of Fort St. Joseph, and the co-author of
Invisible and Inaudible in Washington: American

If challenged, most adult Canadians could remember that 1994 was Jean
Chrétien’s first full year as Prime Minister of Canada and Bob
Rae’s last as Premier of Ontario. Equally memorable would be the
tobacco controversy and its consequences. Canadian cigarette
manufacturers were “exporting” their product to the United States,
where aboriginals made bulk purchases and smuggled them back into Canada
through reserves that straddled the border. Quebec in particular lost
tax revenue. In order to help Liberal Premier Daniel Johnson—who faced
a provincial election—demonstrate that “federalism worked” and to
make legitimate vendors competitive with the smugglers, the Chrétien
government slashed tobacco taxes. The effect was cumulative. To prevent
residents of Ottawa and other places near the Quebec border from
shopping in Quebec, Ontario and New Brunswick had to slash their tobacco
taxes. Their neighbors had to follow suit, as did their neighbors’
neighbors. Tobacco consumption soared and Daniel Johnson lost the Quebec
election anyway, to militant separatist Jacques Parizeau.

Most will recall other stories but not remember that they happened in
1994. NAFTA took effect January 1. Wal-Mart purchased 120 Woolco outlets
and moved into Canada. The House of Commons approved construction of the
bridge to Prince Edward Island. Trials of members of the Canadian Armed
Forces accused of crimes in Somalia ended, and the convicted began to
serve their sentences. After Bosnian Serbs kidnapped 16 Canadian
soldiers, Prime Minister Chrétien threatened to withdraw the Canadian
Armed Forces from the former Yugoslavia. The first successful lawsuit in
the tainted blood scandal took place, and there were high-profile
Canada–U.S. disputes over the fishery on both coasts. Despite
reservations about the human rights record of Fidel Castro’s
government, the Liberal government resumed the flow of aid to Cuba,
suspended in 1978. Brian Mulroney, whose government had prided itself on
good relations with the United States, said that his Conservatives might
have won a third term if he rather than Kim Campbell had led the party
into the 1993 election, where they won only two seats. The Canadian
Armed Forces began their tragic commitment to Rwanda, and financial aid
flowed to Ukraine. A retired Canadian professor, Bertram Neville
Brockhouse, won the Nobel Prize for Physics.

Once again, editors of the Canadian Annual Review have assembled a
magnificent collection of articles, balanced and as thorough as space
permits, on the year’s events. Readers should forever appreciate this
superb reminder of what happened and why it happened.