Canada’s fate as a nation-state has recently been called into question by President-Elect Donald J. Trump. It has sparked a bevy of controversy and endless memes online. Trump’s suggestion that Canada should become the fifty-first state was likely said in jest to get Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to better comport his government’s policies with the preferences of the incoming Trump administration. 

These comments have nonetheless prompted a very serious firestorm within Canada’s political scene. Even Right-leaning allies of President-Elect Trump in Canada are attacking the incoming forty-seventh president for his divisive remarks. Part of the reason, though, that the Canadians have become consumed with such fiery rage over Trump’s comments is because he likely hit a sore spot. For years, the Canadians have struggled with a form of identity crisis. 

What with being the tiny mostly friendly neighbor to the north of the United States, a nation that for the last almost century has been so dependent on U.S. security guarantees and trade that Canadian troops often serve at U.S. military bases and many Canadian citizens split their time between the land of the Maple leaf and the United States. 

Still, the Canadian patriots, even those who support Trump, know that the harsh words spoken by Trump recently to Prime Minister Trudeau have been true for some time. 

Whose Controversy Is It Anyway?

While Canada provided a key partnership for the United States during the Cold War in terms of defending North America from the Soviet military threat, even back in those days, the Canadians showed themselves to be overly reliant on the United States military. A notable experience occurred in what’s become known historically as the Bomarc Missile Controversy.

In 1958, the American aerospace firm, Boeing, and the Michigan Aeronautical Research Center designed the Bomarc missile as a surface-to-air missile capable of intercepting Soviet Red Air Force nuclear bombers. These missiles had a service ceiling of 100,000 feet and a range of 440 miles. Two Marquardt RJ43-MA-7, 12,000-pound thrust ramjets along with a Thiokol 50,000 static thrust engine powered these ministers of death.

In 1958, Canadian Prime Minister John Diefenbaker’s Progressive Conservative party agreed to deploy the Bomarc missiles as part of its North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) obligations, this is a joint command between the United States and Canadian militaries and forms to the bedrock of North American continental defense. 

The two squadrons were to be armed with twenty-eight Bomarc missiles and stationed in North Bay, Ontario, and La Macaza, Quebec. Both Ottawa and Washington, D.C., intended for the two missile batteries to defend North America’s industrial heartland by intercepting Soviet bombers potentially carrying nuclear payloads in Canada’s High North before those bombers could ever reach the industrial centers to the south of the missile installations in North Bay and La Macaza. 

Controversy erupted, however, when it was revealed that the Bomarc missiles were designed to carry nuclear warheads. Canadian Prime Minister Diefenbaker did not disclose this essential fact to the Canadian public, most of whom were viscerally opposed to nuclear weapons being present on Canadian territory. When the true capabilities of the Bomarc missiles were revealed in 1960, it became a dynamite political controversy. 

A massive national debate soon erupted over the country’s overall nuclear policy and ethics behind nuclear warfare. There were, of course, some realistic Canadians who supported arming the Bomarcs with nuclear warheads. Others, though, wanted nuclear disarmament and protested loudly against bringing American nuclear warheads onto Canadian soil. 

The controversy in Canada spilled over into the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. During that time, the Kennedy administration in Washington, D.C., desired to fully deploy American nuclear warheads to the Bomarc units in northern Canada but was met with resistance from Prime Minister Diefenbaker’s government. Indeed, Diefenbaker’s cabinet, like the rest of Canada, was split. 

Diefenbaker was seen as dithering during a time of true nuclear crisis and President John F. Kennedy expected swift and unquestioning support from the Canadian government. When JFK did not receive it in the form of being granted authorization to deploy the warheads to the Bomarc missile batteries, JFK and Diefenbaker’s relationship broke down, and U.S.-Canadian relations remained stalled until Diefenbaker was ousted in 1963. 

Canada’s Political Crisis is a Strategic One, Too

Ultimately, Lester B. Pearson, the head of the Liberal Party in Canada, promised to fulfill Canada’s NORAD commitments by accepting U.S. nuclear warheads. Pearson’s victory in the election led to the arrival of nukes for those Bomarcs in late 1963. It was, however, a short-lived win for Team NORAD, since the Soviet threat shifted from manned strategic nuclear bombers to intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), meaning that the Bomarcs were obsolete. 

A decade thereafter, in 1972, the very Left-wing Pierre Trudeau, father of now-former Canadian leader Justin Trudeau, signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, ending Canada’s obligation to base American nuclear weapons systems out of Canada. 

Regardless of which political party was in power from 1972 onwards, Canada became a nuclear weapons-free zone, while relying on the American nuclear umbrella, of course. The Bomarc affair is instructive, though, of the moral, political, and identity crisis that afflicts modern Canada.

Whereas before the twentieth century, the Canadians could take solace in the idea that they were an extension of the British Crown, a key link in the chain that was the British Empire; the last British redoubt in North America, those days are long over. Canada is inextricably linked to their larger neighbors in the United States. Trump’s comments were likely unserious. But they have nevertheless opened a real identity crisis just as the Bomarc affair did. 

If Canada truly is an independent nation then why is this country so tied to the United States, not just economically but militarily? 

Brandon J. Weichert, a Senior National Security Editor at The National Interest as well as a Senior Fellow at the Center for the National Interest, and a contributor at Popular Mechanics, consults regularly with various government institutions and private organizations on geopolitical issues. Weichert’s writings have appeared in multiple publications, including the Washington Times, National Review, The American Spectator, MSN, the Asia Times, and countless others. His books include Winning Space: How America Remains a Superpower, Biohacked: China’s Race to Control Life, and The Shadow War: Iran’s Quest for Supremacy. His newest book, A Disaster of Our Own Making: How the West Lost Ukraine is available for purchase wherever books are sold. He can be followed via Twitter @WeTheBrandon.

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