Anti-Americanism Grows in Canada:
BEICHMAN, ARNOLD
U. S. investors squeezed by new economic nationalism Anti-Americanism Grows in Canada By Arnold Beichman Ottawa "Anti-American talk in Canada is nothing new," an American businessman told me...
...American businessmen, however, point out that until last year they were offered tax inducements to invest in Canada...
...when our reading matter becomes so increasingly American...
...I feel, I suppose, as much Canadian as I do American...
...And another bill now before Parliament asks that a majority of a board of directors of Canadian corporations be either Canadian citizens or bona fide residents...
...The Government is now beginning to legislate against American-affiliated companies but that doesn't bother me because it's still possible to operate profitably within the regulations...
...Now I'm trying to figure out what to do next...
...Nevertheless, Canadian lawyers who advise American businessmen here have pointed out that laws like these can easily be circumvented...
...The Canadian Labor Congress is deeply concerned at the rise in unemployment...
...I've lived here for 15 years...
...More than one-quarter of all industry in Canada-totalling about $10 billion-is controlled in the U.S., according to a recent report sponsored jointly by the National Planning Association (U.S...
...That is why the Kennedy-Diefenbaker conference is particularly crucial for hemispheric solidarity...
...What doesn't seem to be realized here," he said, "is that this means an increase in the cost of living, in terms of the U.S...
...I can also increase my prices if the American dollar becomes more expensive and thus increase my profits...
...My two children were born here...
...In addition, almost $6 billion worth of Canadian stocks and bonds are held by American shareholders...
...dollar...
...There was always a certain amount of feeling against the United States here," he continued, "and you've got to expect it...
...and does a business of about $4 million annually...
...Arnold Beichman is a special correspondent for the Christian Science Monitor who recently did a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation TV program on anti-Americanism in Canada...
...What the businessman was talking about is a major fact of Canadian life: the extraordinary upsurge of anti-Americanism from coast to coast among Canadian politicians, editors, intellectuals, college professors and the man in the street...
...ownership...
...Hugh MacLennan, the distinguished Canadian writer, has said that "at the present moment the United States is considered a greater threat to world peace than Russia...
...It already stands at about 10 per cent of a work force of 6.5 million and predictions for early Spring are that unemployment will rise between 750,000 and one million unless the present industrial slump ends swiftly-which seems unlikely by all economic portents...
...However, the Canadian Government must act responsibly so as not to discourage productive future investment...
...But when you don't know what a government's policies are going to be or you begin to feel unwelcome, you think twice and then you wait...
...The grand total of American investment in Canada is almost 816 billion, more than a third of all private American investment overseas...
...While he has been criticized by other Canadian economists, his position and influence are great...
...The speaker, in his early 40s, was managing director of a Toronto subsidiary of a United States company...
...I've got the land on which to build an extension to our factory and we should expand, but I hesitate to recommend such a policy because, frankly, I don't know what's going to happen next around here...
...I've never worried before...
...Other examples of such criticism and pleas for Canadian neutralism can be heard almost daily...
...They revolve around two issues-American domination of Canada's economic existence and American foreign policy, particularly as it relates to Red China and trade with Cuba...
...My wife is Canadianwe met skiing in the Laurentians...
...For example, the Canadian subsidiary of an American corporation, if it wants to avoid the 15 per cent dividend withholding tax, can simply lend the money to the parent company at a low rate of interest...
...It will take many more meetings on all levels before the dangerous drift in Canadian-American relations will take a turn for the better...
...But today it's something different and, as a businessman, it's keeping me from doing what I want to do-to invest more of the firm's profits in expansion...
...There can be no immediately significant achievement in the Kennedy-Diefenbaker meeting other than to begin some change of atmosphere...
...I'm willing to take my chances as far as business prospects are concerned, even in the middle of a serious recession...
...I've been running my own factory for six years and I've grown to love this country...
...The American businessman pointed out that his Canadian business would suffer little as a result of government economic policies because "my competition is from the American manufacturer who sends his finished goods to Canada...
...You don't dare make a capital investment now because you don't know to what limits the present hostility will go...
...Canada has a perfect and undisputed right to act against undue economic penetration while eschewing unworkable autarchic policies...
...A number of economic facts of life are important in the present situation...
...and the Private Planning Association (Canada...
...He employs 150 Canadian workers in the manufacture of a product which used to be imported from the U.S...
...U. S. investors squeezed by new economic nationalism Anti-Americanism Grows in Canada By Arnold Beichman Ottawa "Anti-American talk in Canada is nothing new," an American businessman told me recently...
...As to the board of directors proposal, a Canadian subsidiary could reduce the number of directors to three, with an American managing director, his Canadian wife and, say, the company accountant comprising the entire board...
...Half of Canada's manufacturing and two-thirds of its mining, smelting and petroleum industries are under U.S...
...American magazines, notably Time and the Reader's Digest, were the subject of a Royal Commission investigation in which speaker after speaker spoke concernedly about the impact of American culture on the Canadian people...
...A recent editorial in the Toronto Star asked rhetorically, "are the Americans abetting terrorism in Cuba...
...At the moment, we can make out...
...It is felt here that he wants to revive import controls-which ended in 1949-and to let the Canadian dollar fall even lower in terms of the U.S...
...military leaders "verge on wanting war [which] prevents the United States from the give-and-take needed in negotiating the prevention of calamity...
...The anti-Americanism issue was recently the subject of a nation-wide television show called Background, over the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, which elicited an enormous amount of letters and phone calls...
...James Coyne, governor of the Bank of Canada (roughly equivalent to the Federal Reserve Bank), has been a leader in Canada's economic nationalist drive...
...For example, the Periodical Press Association of Canada has charged that Canadians are "in grave danger of becoming cultural and intellectual satellites of the U.S...
...This is the major reason for the little "summit meeting" on February 20 between President Kennedy and Canadian Prime Minister John Diefenbaker in Washington, to ensure, in Kennedy's words, "that harmonious relations exist between two old friends...
...Such laws will not hurt the alert businessman," said the American industrialist, "but it makes him wonder what follows next...
...The exporter to Canada, faced with a currency which is falling in value, will simply increase his prices and then the unions will naturally enough ask for wage increases in an already depressed economy...
...What does bother me is that these two countries, friends for a long time, seem destined to become enemies unless the current trend of violent nationalism is moderated or at least tempered by fact and reason...
...The anti-American talk in Parliament, in Cabinet circles, in the press and throughout the provinces is greater than it's ever been in my memory...
...The Vancouver Sun editorially suggested that U.S...
...But last December, the Parliament passed a "baby" budget which raised the withholding tax on dividends from 5 per cent to 15 per cent...
...There are sharp differences between the two countries over Cuba, China, nuclear strategy, NATO, colonialism, foreign trade and overseas investments...
...dollar...
Vol. 44 • February 1961 • No. 8
