Western Canada and free trade with the U.S. in the 1911 and 1988 elections

[homelycooking]

A fine paper, Hash. You've made some interesting organizational choices in this paper, especially the one to phrase the struggle between Ottawa and the West in terms of "core-periphery relations". Your implication of dependency theory is intriguing in that it implies a relation (regional)  within the periphery (Canada) subject to unfavorable terms of trade with the core (USA) - was it the case that politics sometimes framed the economic plight of farmers or energy sector workers as oppressive regulation rather than oppressive trade regimes brought about through capitalism? I understand that the latter has traditionally been the province of the left ("Canada is a colony of the USA!"), but it seems to me that the USA is the clear hegemon through its huge market, not Ottawa.

That leads me to think about not only economic relations across the east-west axis, but political ones as well. The section in which you talk about NEP (an acronym shared unfortunately with Malaysia!) and Meech Lake is most fascinating for me. The ways in which tariff politics inform debates about federalism and the nature of administration within the space economy would have been the focus of the paper if I had written it, but I understand that your focus on elections necessitates an analysis of the basic economic factors leading to election performance. To what extent is Western sectionalism motivated by economic factors rather than cultural ones? And how has the Conservative party attempted to meet the demands of the West while recognizing that it must win the support of voters from the core, in Ontario? I've always been struck by the heterogeneity of Canada - even of Anglophone Canada. How does a nation so culturally and economically oriented toward market activity to the South reconcile that heterogeneity with a desire for cohesive federalism?

Anyway, this is just what I've thought about when reading. Feel free to discount absolutely everything I've said, since I read this merely to learn something new and don't pretend to know anything at all on this topic.

[homelycooking]

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I understand. You obviously have a much more Canadian focus than American, so my thinking about the paper just centered around Meech Lake and the problem of federalism. This is also a reason why my own writing sometimes strays from the topics at hand and starts to engage theories and philosophies that are often totally irrelevant to the assignment but satisfy my own twisted curiosity.

What did you read in this class? Anything interesting from the study of relations with Mexico? How far back in history did you go?