North American Institutions

The roots run deep between Canada and the United States of America. We had similar origins and aspirations, both leaving an old world for a new continent. We were neighbours before we were nations and, while there have been some fierce disagreements, it has been an uncommonly agreeable neighbourhood, compared to other parts of the world.We haven't needed many formal institutions, so we haven't created them. Those we have created have been transactional, not inspirational. They have been about deals, not dreams, about managing the existing relation instead of imagining something larger. The Canada-US relationship is about people and attitudes, not institutions and rules. It is a political relationship, more than it is economic, or legal, or related to security, and any discussion about institutions must remember that fundamental reality.Even this hyper-organized era, the most vital relations between Canada and the US are personal-the actual experiences of citizens of one country with citizens of the other and, as important, the perceptions those citizens have of their neighbour, and of themselves. The experiences tend to draw us together. The perceptions-including each nation's distinctive sense of itself-tend to set us apart.Those perceptions also run deep, and remind us that more than a border sets the countries apart. Canada is rarely on the minds of most Americans; at best, Canada is part of the background, like the weather, or a sound off-stage, despite being the next-door-neighbour, despite being the largest trading partner.By contrast, the US is almost always on the screen of most Canadians: for some it is a model, for others a threat, but for everyone, an inescapable presence. At worst, that is an aggressive presence, in your face, insensitive.That perception gap-the taken-for-granted versus the aggressive-is one of the central challenges of the relationship, because it informs and reflects fundamental public attitudes. Both countries are competitive democracies, where public attitudes matter, and broad public support is essential for any major change. Each country takes its sense of sovereignty seriously, and would resist any apparent erosion of national institutions, or national interest. So one set of questions is: how can Americans be led to lift their eyes? How can Canadians be led to lower their fears?Most formal institutional arrangements between the two countries were designed to facilitate activities which individual citizens were already engaged or, the case of the defence arrangements, to respond to a common threat. The institutions followed practice, rather than prescribing it. The International Joint Commission was established to give effect to a specific treaty, the international boundary waters treaty of 1909. The joint defence institutions grew out of specific requirements for cooperation defending a common geography. The trade panels followed the trade agreements.Most often, the specific mandate matters mainly to the interests involved the transaction, whether those are businesses, or security planners, or managers of water flows or traffic. That mandate is often clear and limited. Its success or failure is tangible. It can be assessed by a bottom line.The rub is that those transactions also have consequences well beyond their constituencies and sponsors. They affect jobs, standards, and sovereignty, and raise questions that can't be answered by incantations about GDP or external threats. Narrow-gauge institutions-for example, NAFTA and NORAD-were designed to operate within a specific range of interests, and are ill-equipped to deal with the highly political context within which they inevitably exist.Most of those institutions have also been relatively uncontroversial, because they have not seemed to thrust near the vital veins of sovereignty, or basic national interest, on either side of the border. The trade agreements were an exception. …

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