Contributors to Dealing with the Elephant: Canada’s Prime Ministers and US Presidents
Jordan Cousins; Joshua Foster; Magdalena Gaass; Thomas David Hartnell; Hanna Mattie; Lachlan McLaren; Orie Olynyk; Kaiden Polanski; and Michael Smith
The chapters in this book were written in an upper level undergraduate and graduate seminar in the fall of 2025 as Canadians became increasingly worried about the United States and Donald Trump. It was an appropriate moment to look back and examine how several of Canada’s prime ministers have managed the unequal but indispensable relationship since 1867. Not all prime ministers are considered here but what emerges is the relationship between Canada and the United States has not been a problem to be solved once and for all but that it is an essential and a permanent aspect of Canadian statecraft. It is an issue that every prime minister inherits and must deal with.
