Canada's War Effort

Report Outline
Hyde Park and Ogdensbung Agreements
Canada and the First Nine Months of War
Expansion of War Effort After Dunkirk
Fiscal Aspects of Canadian War Effort
Special Focus

Hyde Park and Ogdensbung Agreements

The Agreement concluded at Hyde Park, April 20, between President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Mackenzie King, providing for coordination of the production programs being carried on in the United States and Canada for home defense and in aid of Britain, carried into the economic and financial spheres the collaboration initiated in the military sphere through the Ogdensburg agreement of August 17, 1940. The Ogdensburg agreement, by providing for creation of a Permanent Joint Board on Defense, implemented the pledge made by President Roosevelt at Kingston, Ontario, August 18, 1938, when he said: “The Dominion of Canada is part of the sisterhood of the British Empire. I give you assurance that the people of the United States will not stand idly by if domination of Canadian soil is threatened by any other empire.”

By thus specifically affirming application of the Monroe Doctrine to Canada, the President acknowledged an obligation on the part of the United States which fast-moving European events promptly clothed with reality. After an interval of only two years, threats to Canadian and American security, resulting from the course of the war in Europe, had become sufficiently serious to make it advisable to lay definite plans for joint defense. Now, eight months later, the process of cooperation is carried a long step further, not only to strengthen the lines of home defense, but to make more effective the assistance given to Great Britain on the primary battle lines in Europe.

Forging of Closer Canadian-American Relations

Prime Minister Mackenzie King, reporting to the Canadian parliament on the Ogdensburg agreement, laid stress on the fact that “the link forged by the Canada-United States defense agreement is no temporary axis.” He described it as “part of the enduring foundation of a new world order, based on friendship and good will,” and emphasized that, in furtherance of this new world order, Canada was acting “in liaison between the British Commonwealth and the United States.” The Joint Board on Defense, set up under the Ogdensburg agreement, is a permanent agency, intended to outlast the present emergency. While the Hyde Park agreement is directed ostensibly only to the task immediately in hand, it is not illogical to suppose that the economic and financial cooperation for which it provides will produce benefits of sufficient importance to warrant an attempt to extend such cooperation, where it may be appropriately applied, into the post-war period.