Active History

June Chow

The right to know through Canada’s Access to Information Act and the right to personal privacy under the Privacy Act hang in perpetual balance at our national archives. In 2021, an ATIP request submitted to Library and Archives Canada (LAC) sought to open a set of historical government records that remained Restricted within its Chinese Immigration records series, namely, C.I. 44 forms and index cards. The 100th anniversary of the passing of the 1923 Chinese Exclusion Act (formally, the Chinese Immigration Act, 1923) was fast approaching; members of the Chinese Canadian community were all too aware of how many memories of this past had already been lost through the generations. This post offers a detailed, firsthand account of how a community worked with its national archives to open racist government records needed to understand and confront this history. It shows how a community’s agency, self-determination, and right to remember its past can move an institution to action.

Gilbert Gagné

This is the third post in a series on tariffs based on a roundtable organized at Bishop’s University in February 2025. Read the introduction by David Webster here and the first post by Heather McKeen-Edwards here. The second post by Gordon S. Baker appears here.

Everything seems to be about tariffs now; how exposed to potential US tariffs Canada is, and some of the implications and essential issues surrounding this. In terms of history, as Gordon Barker points out in the first post in this series, it used to be the norm that most industrial countries industrialized behind tariffs, and they were more sympathetic to trade liberalization once they felt they were ready to face outside competition. And as Heather McKeen-Edwards has very clearly pointed out, especially following the crash of 1929, increasing tariffs made the crisis even worse. There are calls to immediately renegotiate the free trade agreement with the United States. Yet, with a US administration disregarding the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA) with threats of tariffs, this would make no sense.

Gordon S. Barker

This is the second post in a series on tariffs based on a roundtable organized at Bishop’s University in February 2025. Read the introduction by David Webster here and the first post by Heather McKeen-Edwards here.

Donald Trump’s transactional use of tariffs does not break new ground. In fact, tariffs have played an instrumental role in American nation building for some two hundred and fifty years.  Tariffs were a hotly debated issue during the “Critical Period” under the Articles of Confederation as the New Republic sought to establish itself in the community of nations and build its own national market.  After the Philadelphia Convention of 1787 and the adoption of the American Constitution, tariffs lay at the heart of the controversies between Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson, which divided George Washington’s first administration.  Hamilton saw a tariff as an essential nation-building tool and set out his vision in the Report on Manufactures submitted to Congress in 1793.  Washington’s secretary of the treasury believed tariff protection, a national bank, and a program of internal improvements were key pillars for economic growth and positioning the New Nation in the global community.  In contrast, Jefferson rejected tariffs.  The Sage of Monticello embraced a vision of an agrarian republic that had access to low-cost manufacturing imports to provide the infrastructure needed to expand agricultural production and sustain commodity exports to international markets. 

This is the first post in a three-part series on the history of tariffs. You can read the introduction by David Webster here.

Heather McKeen – Edwards

The idea of tariffs is far from new, politically or economically. In fact, most countries in the world have some tariffs right now. Tariffs are a type of trade barrier, and their goal is usually to slow down imports for a variety of domestic reasons. Historically, governments used them to build their own domestic industry by making the foreign versions of goods more expensive, thus reducing consumer demand for those goods. In today’s world this logic could be framed as an effort to ‘reshore’ industries that have moved overseas.

Beyond industrial development, there are two other common economic reasons for countries to apply a tariff. The first is compensation for perceived unfair trade practices in a sector. Somebody is doing something to manipulate the market, like dumping their goods cheaply in your country. That’s not fair, so you can compensate or retaliate by putting tariffs in place, though usually after trying a process of dispute settlement at the World Trade Organization (WTO) or other dispute-settlement mechanism first. The second is national security. Countries in general are usually concerned about giving up control over certain industries, particularly those that are strategically important. For example, if you don’t have any capacity to produce your own steel, it can affect security and military autonomy. We may see Trump invoke national security in justifying tariffs as it is one of the reasons in US law that he can unilaterally impose tariffs, but security aspects are not necessarily the underlying reason. In fact Trump has presented a myriad of inconsistent reasons in his rationale for tariffs over the past year. 

David Webster
— Tariffs on you!
— No, bigger tariffs on you!
— No, I have the biggest, most beautiful tariffs, and I am slapping them on you!

Anyone could be excused for thinking it was a battle of toddlers. But this is deadly serious: a trade war, one that reminds us of moments of trade tension between Canada and the United States in the past. Only this time, it’s supersized.

Canada has historically balanced its trade between the imperial mother in Britain (the Conservative favourite) and the upstart Uncle Sam (more beloved by Liberals). When the United States slapped tariffs on Canada, trade soared with the UK. The first PM, John A. MacDonald, boasted of his “National Policy” that would nurture infant Canadian industries behind tariff walls. Wilfrid Laurier sought “unrestricted reciprocity” (freer trade had fancier names back then) with the US, and was resoundingly thumped in the 1911 election for it, by the pro-British nationalist Tory Robert Borden. The North American neighbours converged as the Second World War loomed in Europe and Britain’s weakness forced Canada into the loving embrace of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s and his New Deal. Mackenzie King stopped just short of a free trade deal, fearing “the fate of Sir Wilfrid,” who always had sage advice to offer to King from beyond the grave.

Gradual, deepening trade embrace and political alliance seemed the unalterable destiny of the US and the country North of America throughout the Cold War, with Lester Pearson and Lyndon Johnson’s Auto Pact perhaps the best symbol of neighbourliness. Then came Brian Mulroney, who finally got the Free Trade Agreement that had been considered so many times before. No more trying to diversify trade – Mulroney was all-in on the American gamble. And for years, it seemed to be fulfilling some of what he promised when he fought and won the 1988 election on this issue – more prosperity in a more integrated continental economy.

What would Mulroney make of recent events?

Canada is now faced with an existential crisis over President Donald Trump’s tax increases, which he calls tariffs. Trump threatens to destroy the Canadian economy, as a way to annex the country. And yet, few people actually know what a tariff is, or how trade policy works, now and in the past.

To help clear up the issues, at least for a small number of Canadians, a group of colleagues at Bishop’s University held a forum on the history, politics and economics of tariffs, in January of 2025. This forum, which will run over the next three days, offers a series of reflections in edited articles.

First, political economist Heather McKeen-Edwards offers a primer on the economics of tariffs, demystifying a lot of the topic. Next, historian Gordon Barker surveys the US history of tariffs (spoiler: there have been a lot them over the decades). Finally, Gilbert Gagné reflects on the politics of tariffs, drawing on his expertise as a leading political scientist of NAFTA, as we used to call the now-defunct North American Free Trade Agreement. Together, these articles aim to help us understand the history and the issues behind the “dumbest trade war” in a long time.

Eric W. Sager

I did not expect to publish a book towards the end of the eighth decade of my life. And if you had asked me, ten years ago, whether I would write a book about the meaning of history, I would have declared such a thing to be impossible. In retirement, however, I found myself determined to try to answer basic questions about the scholarly discipline that has absorbed my life. The project was at first entirely for my own edification. As I proceeded, I was persuaded that there might be something of interest to others, and so I decided to seek a publisher, and to persist with the search despite rejections. The story of what follows says something about rewards for persistence, and perhaps also something about our relationship with publishers – a relationship in which we historians may have more influence than we may realize.