Again, interesting articles, especially the one about Jean Chrétien. Keep 'em coming, Ed.

People here -- both across Canada and on this board -- like to talk loosely about Canada being "traditionally" a nation that does peacekeeping and acts as an "honest broker" in international relations. My reading of Canadian history produces a rather different picture: as I see it, until Trudeau the Elder came along, Canada "traditionally" raised disproportionately large armies of amateur soldiers to fight in overseas wars under British command, and had little to no voice in international relations. Pierre Elliot Trudeau changed that, taking us out of Central Army Group in the NATO force in West Germany (where our mechanized brigade group operated as part of a British formation), and shifting our defence priorities to focus on sovereignty in Canada, which meant domestic operations and cooperation with the United States in NORAD. That whole honest broker thing came from our participation in UN peace-support operations and the UN Security Council, both artifacts of the Cold War balance of power in which Canada managed to remain a client state of the USA while remaining aloof from the war in Viet Nam. BTW, that was smart stick-handling by both Lester Pearson and Trudeau the Elder.

Of course, Canada is even more of a US client now, thanks in no small part to the Manichean world view of the Conservative Party under Mr Harper. But that's a whole 'nother topic of discussion.