Environmental nationalist: Andrew McNaughton and Canada–US relations in the Cold War

Few Canadians can boast a résumé of public service activities as impressive and varied as General Andrew George Latta McNaughton. After distinguished service in the First World War, which included a leading role at Vimy Ridge, by 1929 A.G.L. McNaughton had risen to commander of the Canadian Army. An engineer and scientist trained at McGill who had co-invented the cathode ray tube, a forerunner to radar, McNaughton then became, in 1935, head of the National Research Council of Canada. ¹ Re-joining the Canadian Army during the Second World War, McNaughton was commander of the 1st Canadian Infantry Division, where he made several noteworthy technical contributions.

However, McNaughton’s resistance to splitting up Canadian forces put him on the outs with both the British and the Canadian minister of national defence. But he was not on the outs with his troops, who adored him, nor the prime minister, William Lyon Mackenzie King, who envisioned McNaughton as the first Canadian to hold the office of governor general. That almost came to pass, but, instead, the prime minister recruited Andy McNaughton to join his Cabinet as minister of national defence in 1944. King’s main motivation for bringing McNaughton into the Cabinet was to deal with the looming conscription crisis. McNaughton remained a minister only for a year since he twice failed to win a seat in Parliament—though he was successful at almost everything he tried he was not much of a politician.

Even if McNaughton’s public service career had ended there, he still would have been widely celebrated by many. J.L. Granatstein labelled him “the best-known general in Canadian history.” ² The Canadian association of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers named a medal after him to recognize outstanding engineers. But McNaughton transitioned to the role of diplomat. In the half-decade after the end of the Second World War, McNaughton was appointed to a suite of important positions: chairman of the Canadian section of the Permanent Joint Board on Defence (PJBD) for 1945–1959; Canadian representative to the UN Atomic Energy Commission and president of the Atomic Energy Control Board of Canada (1946–1948); head of Canada’s permanent delegation to the United Nations and representative on the UN Security Council (1948–1949); and in 1950 he was appointed to the International Joint Commission (IJC), later that year becoming the chairman of the Canadian section, a position he would hold for over a decade.

Today, Andrew McNaughton may be the most underappreciated Canadian foreign policy actor from Canada’s putative diplomatic “golden age.” McNaughton frequently appears in international histories and political memoirs covering the 1940s–1960s. But his diplomatic activities have rarely been the subject of focused academic attention. The point of this piece is to explore McNaughton’s contributions to Canadian–American diplomacy during the early Cold War period, chiefly through his position on the IJC. In particular, I will look at McNaughton’s role in the evolution of three major Canada–US border waters megaprojects in the Niagara, St. Lawrence, and Columbia Rivers. His post-1945 international activities, especially these water control projects, reveal that he was an unquiet and activist diplomat who combined a fierce nationalism with deep expertise and a willingness to use his public standing to advance Canadian interests.

While McNaughton’s diplomatic activities are in need of more sustained attention, his military career has been comparatively well catalogued. For example, the senior historian of the National War Museum (forerunner to today’s Canadian War Museum), John Swettenham, published a three-volume biography of McNaughton in the late 1960s. ³ But this gives relatively short shrift to his post-1945 diplomatic career, only getting into that phase in the final volume. Also, as an “authorized biography” done in consultation with General McNaughton, it is not always objective about its subject. Nonetheless, Swettenham does an excellent job of foregrounding McNaughton’s nationalism.

McNaughton had proven his nationalist bona fides during the Second World War when he clashed with the British High Command over use of the Canadian army. After 1945, McNaughton’s nationalist resistance more often turned towards the US. ⁴ His various post-war roles brought him into close contact with that nation, and, for obvious reasons, it was now the potential for American, rather than British, infringement on Canadian sovereignty that became the bigger concern.

McNaughton became his country’s permanent representative to the UN and also served as president of the UN Security Council and on the UN Atomic Energy Commission. A recent study of McNaughton’s time as the Canadian representative on the latter praises his skilled manoeuvring from 1945–1946, contending that McNaughton helped generate support for the general principles of the US position, the Baruch plan, while also pushing back against some elements of this plan in a prudent way. ⁵ During Canada’s 1948–1949 Security Council term, the delegation was chiefly preoccupied with three issues: Kashmir; Palestine/Israel; and Indonesia. In his study of Canada on the Security Council, Adam Chapnick writes that “General McNaughton might not have been Ottawa’s first choice for Canadian representative, but he was the right one.” ⁶ Both Canada’s and McNaughton’s reputations were enhanced by their handling of these conflicts, as David Webster has shown for Canada’s stance on Indonesia. McNaughton’s (and by extension, Canadian) policies in these cases were based on pragmatic national self-interest, viewing Canada as a middle power and helpful fixer while adopting a functionalist stance (i.e., that Canada should have influence and a role in certain areas dictated by its special interests and capabilities). This included protecting the reputation of the United Nations, which McNaughton saw as the vehicle for global collective security, which generally also furthered Canadian interests. ⁷

On the PJBD, McNaughton enjoyed good relations with the Americans and had the opportunity to become well acquainted with important figures such as Dean Acheson. Granted, “there were inevitably times of strain” since “McNaughton would concede nothing that would prejudice the interests of Canada.” ⁸ McNaughton led the integration of a number of Canada–US sectors. This included the standardization of weapons and technologies—as innocuous as it sounds, one of the most important of these was screw threads. ⁹ The establishment of radar lines in the far north was another task, and one that gave McNaughton the opportunity to familiarize himself with the resources of, and potential American designs on, this region.

McNaughton’s diplomatic dealings with the US in the last half of the 1940s were instructive for shaping, or confirming, his subsequent approach to that country. McNaughton wanted a powerful and nuclear-armed US that ensured collective and continental security for the Western world, which he demonstrated through his PJBD and UN positions. But he also believed that Canada did not need to compromise its interests vis-à-vis the US; as a blunt and outspoken advocate of what he perceived as his country’s national interests, McNaughton countered the emphasis many Canadian officials placed on quiet diplomacy. But his US counterparts knew this was not a blind nationalism or anti-Americanism. His demonstrated ability to master the technical elements of national security and water resources files, gained by his background as an engineer and general, also served him in good stead.

McNaughton was therefore already known and respected in American diplomatic circles when he accepted an appointment to the Canadian section of the IJC. ¹⁰ Of course, as McNaughton himself noted, the PJBD was a forum with more cooperative objectives for the defence of the continent, while the IJC was the body in which the two nations were “rivals for the beneficial uses of the water along the boundary.” ¹¹ Thus, there was bound to be more friction, particularly in an era when the US and Canada undertook the development of huge border waters projects with much at stake for industry, economic development, and national security.

In fact, McNaughton was appointed to the IJC by the St. Laurent Liberal government, on the advice of Mackenzie King, with the hope that he could solve the half-century-long impasse over bilateral agreement to build a St. Lawrence Seaway and Power Project. McNaughton even had direct prior experience with the Seaway file: he had been an advisor to the Canadian minister to the US in the 1930s during the St. Lawrence negotiations (which included helping draw up treaty drafts), and the national security elements of this project had previously brought it within the purview of the PJBD. ¹²

However, the first major hydropower project that McNaughton would help oversee through his role on the IJC was the implementation of the 1950 Niagara Diversion Treaty. This agreement resulted from several decades of binational attempts to plumb Niagara Falls (see Figure 1) for greater hydropower production while “enhancing” the waterfall’s appearance. ¹³ The treaty authorized bilateral remedial works that enabled huge amounts of water to be diverted around the cataract and used at downstream hydro-electric plants, built in Ontario and New York, while also manipulating the river and shrinking the waterfall in order to maintain its scenic appeal. The treaty increased and equalized diversions between the two countries, allowing them to take between half and three-quarters of the river’s water.

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Figure 1.

The Niagara waterscape.

Remedial works, which, as IJC chairman, McNaughton was directly involved in approving, were also intended to stop or slow the natural erosion that annually moved the massive Horseshoe Falls back several feet on average. These engineering works included a 1550-foot control dam, fills, excavations, and other infrastructural interventions. Excavation took place along the flanks of the Horseshoe Falls (64,000 cubic yards of rock on the Canadian flank; 24,000 cubic yards on the US flank) in order to create a better distribution of flow and an unbroken crestline at all times. The “V” shape of the riverbed and lip was changed to a “U.” Crest fills that shrunk the Horseshoe Falls by 355 feet were performed, parts of which would be fenced and landscaped for public vantage points.

Canadian and American officials frequently disagreed about the various technical aspects of these remedial works. They also disagreed about the order and pace of construction, since Canada prioritized works that enabled quicker power generation over those that maintained the aesthetic appeal of the waterfall. Due in large part to McNaughton’s insistence, the Canadian and Ontario Hydro engineering plans were given equal credence to those produced by the US Army Corps of Engineers. McNaughton and the Canadians prioritized getting water diverted to the new Ontario generation station. McNaughton, relaying the sentiments of the PJBD, urged that Ontario “go right ahead on [power] development” since these “blocks of new power are most urgently needed for defence.” ¹⁴ He reacted with derision when American officials complained about delays, rattling off a long list of reasons why the impediments were, in fact, the result of their inaction. ¹⁵

Diplomatic discussions about reengineering Niagara Falls had been often intertwined with similar discussions about the St. Lawrence. Canada and the US had discussed remaking the St. Lawrence River, the second largest on the continent, for deep-draught navigation and hydro development as early as the late nineteenth century. In 1932 and 1941, bilateral accords authorizing the St. Lawrence project were signed but could not make it through the US Senate (these also included Niagara provisions). As the Cold War dawned, several national security factors, such as the ability to ship iron ore to the Great Lakes from Labrador and northern Quebec as well as allow protected shipbuilding on the Great Lakes, joined the economic upsides of a Seaway. But with matters stalled in the US Congress, Ontario and New York State decided to proceed with just the hydropower aspect of the dual project. In concert, Canada began seriously considering building the navigation aspect alone in the early 1950s.

McNaughton was a major proponent of this all-Canadian Seaway. For the general, American involvement in the St. Lawrence project and the negation of a solely Canadian route would yoke Canada more tightly into the American harness and further subservience to US foreign policy. ¹⁶ An all-Canadian Seaway promised the opposite. But Washington was not very interested in Canada, alone, controlling what ships could come into the Great Lakes or reaping all the economic benefits of the new shipping channel. Through the IJC and other necessary forums such as the US Federal Power Commission, US officials waylaid a solely Canadian waterway until American participation could be secured. This use of the IJC was a misuse of its nonpartisan ethos; granted, McNaughton had arguably started this overt politicization of the IJC by agitating for a Canadian route.

McNaughton’s national Seaway tack was joined by the likes of Cabinet ministers C.D. Howe and Lionel Chevrier. Going it alone with the St. Lawrence project represented both a nation-building agenda based on a confident Canadian post-war nationalism and heritage connections to the St. Lawrence as the river of Canada. At a meeting of the Canadian St. Lawrence interdepartmental committee, McNaughton argued that it “did not appear that there was a formula for joint construction of the Seaway which Canada could accept without prejudicing our national life,” considering that the St. Lawrence had “traditionally” been developed by Canada. ¹⁷ Others concurred, as did the public, but the Liberal government wanted more study of the bilateral repercussions of Canadian action along these lines. Ambassador to the US, A.D.P. Heeney, and other officials in the Department of External Affairs strongly disagreed with McNaughton and his allies, since the ambassador was under the impression that there had been an informal agreement within the government to consider any US proposal. Prime Minister St. Laurent and Secretary of State for External Affairs Lester Pearson both came to prefer the all-Canadian alternative but were aware of the potentially negative ramifications that going it alone might have for the Canadian–American relationship.

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Figure 2.

Area flooded by the St. Lawrence Seaway and Power Project.

Canada, aware that the US was holding up approval of the Ontario–New York power project, was caught in a catch-22 since the hydro-electric works were needed in order to make a Canadian waterway a reality. While it proceeded with planning the all-Canadian Seaway, the Canadian government therefore tentatively left the door open to US participation in the hopes that this would allow the hydro aspect to commence. In spring 1953, the new Eisenhower government decided to seek an American role; the Canadian prime minister consented to US involvement chiefly because of the likely negative ramifications for the Canadian–US relationship if Canada resisted. ¹⁸

McNaughton was disappointed. But the two countries still needed to hash out the terms of a shared Seaway, which they opted to do outside of the IJC. The Americans had gone from standing on the side-lines to insisting that all the major navigation elements, such as locks, in the international section of the Seaway should be in their territory. Although McNaughton was not a part of the official Canadian delegation sent to negotiate the 1954 Seaway agreement, he played an important role in defending Canadian interests, meeting separately with American Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert Anderson. ¹⁹ Through this back channel communication, McNaughton warned Anderson that, unless Canada was given the freedom and flexibility to build on its side, there could be strong repercussions—including the collapse of the negotiations for a joint waterway. ²⁰ He insisted that the locks at Iroquois be put on the Canadian side—which Canada then achieved by going ahead with construction of the locks before the US could do so. McNaughton further hinted that Canada would be more disposed to an agreement if the US met the current Canadian demands of C$15 million compensation for common works and compensation for the loss of the old 14-foot St. Lawrence canals.

McNaughton’s intervention evidently played a part in convincing the US government that Canada was not going to back down. ²¹ In 1954, the two sides arrived at an agreement that incorporated the points for which McNaughton had lobbied. With this Seaway accord secured, the lengthy construction period for the dual project could commence (Figure 2). The Seaway was opened in 1958, and the turbines in the Barnhart Power Dam near Cornwall—the largest transborder power dam in the world at the time it was finished—started producing electricity in 1959. The IJC was responsible for overseeing construction, which kept McNaughton intimately involved. He continued to fight for Canadian interests during the construction phase—in particular, that the project and related infrastructure be done in such a way that would allow Ottawa to soon build an all-Canadian Seaway on the north side of the river channel. This he managed to achieve, even though a solely Canadian Seaway was ultimately never built because cargo volumes never justified it.

McNaughton’s experience with the St. Lawrence issue undoubtedly influenced other subsequent Canadian–American transborder water and environmental relations, such as the Columbia River developments. Prior to the 1950s, the US already had built large power stations on its stretch of the Columbia River, while Canada had not. Additional schemes to harness the Columbia, for flood control and hydro-electricity, had been considered by the IJC. But the lower Columbia’s full potential for the US could be unlocked only if the upper parts of the river situated in Canada were also dammed to provide storage reservoirs. ²²

McNaughton, as chairman of the Canadian section of the IJC, thought that the proposal for the rationalization of the river by the Army Corps of Engineers was inimical to Canadian interests. With the initial support of the federal government and many others in Canada, he pushed extremely hard for an all-Canadian scheme that involved diverting the Kootenay River into the Columbia in Canadian territory. The greater volume would, in turn, supply hydro dams built in the Canadian stretch of the Columbia. Parts of the upper Columbia flow could also be potentially diverted into the Fraser River for power development and maybe east to the prairies. ²³ McNaughton clearly preferred that Canada, as the upstream riparian, make use of the water. But he also developed the novel idea of “downstream benefits,” meaning that Canada should receive compensation for any works or reservoirs in Canadian territory that benefitted the US.

But the British Columbia (BC) premier, W.A.C. Bennett, preferred making separate deals with Americans that would bring immediate economic benefits. Realizing that McNaughton’s all-Canadian plan was a non-starter with the BC premier, the St. Laurent government and the Eisenhower administration began direct negotiations about developing the Columbia, cutting out the IJC. McNaughton insisted that this was done at the behest of the US Army Corps of Engineers. ²⁴ The Diefenbaker government then retired McNaughton from the IJC—in his words, he was “fired”—to get him out of the way, contending that this was a necessary step in order to reconcile disparate viewpoints and political jurisdictions. ²⁵ Treaty negotiators (sans McNaughton) eventually settled on a scheme that involved three dams in Canada (Duncan, Mica, and Keenleyside); another (Libby) would be built on the Kootenay River in the US, and its reservoir would extend upriver into Canada (see Figure 3). In compensation for the electricity that was generated south of the border, made possible by the control dams and reservoirs in BC, Canada would receive “downstream benefits” that consisted of cash and half of the extra US electricity. Based on these terms, the Columbia River Treaty was signed in January 1961 and ratified by the US.

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Figure 3.

Columbia River watershed and dams.

But it quickly became apparent that Premier Bennett was opposed—not only because Ottawa interfered through federal electricity export restrictions but also because the treaty’s terms interfered with his “two rivers” scheme, which aimed to simultaneously replumb the Columbia and Peace Rivers for hydro development. Bennett wanted to sell the resulting power to the Americans on a long-term basis. However, such sales contravened the federal policy of allowing the export of electric power only on a non-permanent basis. McNaughton, for his part, railed against the treaty, lamenting that the reservoirs in BC would be operated in a way that mainly benefitted American interests. Writing in this very journal in 1963, he argued that “[w]e will thus be in a sense the creator of the crushing burden we will have to bear in the future, when our lands will need to be inundated in flooding and exposed as muddy flats in drawdown to serve requirements we ourselves have helped to create, to our own distress and hurt and from which there will be no relief—ever.” ²⁶

After Pearson replaced Diefenbaker as prime minister, he looked to renegotiate the treaty. If favourable changes could be made to the agreement, he told President John F. Kennedy, Canada would authorize the sale of downstream power benefits over a long period. That possibility made Bennett more amenable. An elaborate series of triangular negotiations between the BC, Canadian, and American governments ensued. After BC and the federal government had ironed out their differences, in 1964, Canada and the US agreed to a protocol that modified the 1961 Columbia River Treaty and governed its implementation.

The revised terms included: new procedures for the operation of flood control; reaffirmation and clarification of Canada’s rights to divert water for consumptive and other uses; and the increase in Canada’s entitlement to downstream power benefits. ²⁷ The site of the dams remained unchanged. The Americans would send Canada half the power generated in the US—made possible by the Canadian works—but Canada would sell this power for C$254 million for 30 years to a group of American utilities (and pass on these proceeds to BC). Additionally, Canada would receive C$64 million for Seaway flood control benefits. Either country could terminate the treaty after sixty years, with ten years’ notice.

To its promoters, the Columbia River Treaty serves as a successful example of a transboundary water treaty. ²⁸ But McNaughton certainly did not share such a rosy assessment. And he was not alone in framing the Columbia deal as a sell out: Donald Waterfield labelled Canada’s handling of the Columbia as a “pusillanimous surrender” and was joined by many others who saw the Columbia dams as further evidence of American imperialism towards Canadian natural resources. ²⁹ Electricity from the Columbia served to further integrate the two countries’ power grids, which nationalist detractors now claim prevented the formation of a national Canadian grid. ³⁰ Moreover, the “important downstream environmental and social costs,” which have become more apparent only over time, “were at best undervalued and in some cases ignored by the parties that crafted the final agreement.” ³¹

Between his forced retirement and his death in 1966, McNaughton kept his focus on water issues, such as a Canadian national water policy and resistance to Canadian water exports. He continued to oppose the Columbia deal. He also crusaded against the North American Water and Power Alliance (NAWAPA). This scheme by Ralph M. Parsons and Co., a firm of engineering consultants, involved diverting water from major rivers in Alaska, BC, and Yukon to a gargantuan reservoir in the Rocky Mountain Trench. From there, it would be redirected for consumption and power across the continent, but especially to the western US. In 1963 NAWAPA’s total cost was estimated at about C$100 billion, with construction taking several decades. Enough politicians in Canada and the US advocated for NAWAPA—a bill was introduced into Congress, and, in Canada, Alvin Hamilton, Parliamentary opposition member and former minister of northern affairs, promoted it—that McNaughton felt compelled to publicly campaign against it. Granted, he opposed it on purely Canadian nationalist grounds, not as the environmentally catastrophic and outlandish engineering scheme that it was. The Canadian public reaction was, generally, also hostile, and, along with its price tag and lack of feasibility, this quashed NAWAPA—though it continues to be brought up from time to time.

We can draw a number of “lessons of history” from McNaughton’s environmental diplomacy. For better or for worse, McNaughton exhibited a “Canada first” attitude and in some ways resisted the tide of continentalism, as well as the quiet and closed-door diplomacy represented by the 1965 Heeney–Merchant report. American officials knew he was a tough and skilled negotiator. He was happy to co-operate when national goals overlapped, but he was not afraid to broach conflict when they did not. According to his biographer, “[McNaughton] was the arch-apostle of Canada as a strong and independent country and the concept moved more deeply in him than any other. It has provided the purpose of his life; it was the kernel of his belief; and it was the mainspring of his attitude towards politics and politicians.” ³² Granted, this description borders on hyperbolic and ignores the ways that McNaughton could be unrealistic about the limits that bilateral asymmetry put on his all-Canadian plans.

Andy McNaughton was an innovator as an engineer, an army commander, and an activist diplomat, used to pressure situations. He was also an experienced negotiator who wielded engineering, scientific knowledge, and expertise about the matters he negotiated. He combined this rare combination with a willingness to take public stands. Canadian diplomacy could use more of that today. In the time of former US President Donald Trump (20 January 2017– 20 January 2021) and heightened American protectionism, McNaughton’s skill and brand of nationalism might be helpful when dealing with the US and protecting Canadian interests. McNaughton recognized that the closeness of the bilateral relationship was based, above all, on self-interest rather than notions of a special relationship. While Canada and the US have enjoyed a remarkably strong relationship for three-quarters of a century, this is more the result of pragmatic and coinciding economic and geographic considerations, many of which can and do change. The mutability and variability of the factors that lead to Canada–US co-operation have been brought into stark relief over the Trump era.

McNaughton’s career underlines the importance of natural resources in Canadian–American relations. One of the reasons he has been ignored may be that so much of his focus was on natural resources and energy, subjects that historians of Canadian–American relations have been reluctant to engage in more than a superficial way. ³³ The Columbia River Treaty renegotiations are now ongoing, while other megaprojects that McNaughton helped create, such as the St. Lawrence and Niagara megaprojects, can also be renegotiated or abandoned with advance notice. In both the Columbia and St. Lawrence megaprojects, McNaughton advocated for all-Canadian plans that did not sacrifice national interests. But in both cases, other factors from within Canada complicated or undermined his tough stands, and the development of those water basins proceeded with greater American involvement than the general had hoped.

In some ways, McNaughton might be considered part of the left-wing economic nationalists often associated with the New Democratic Party Waffle movement of the early 1970s or today’s Council of Canadians. Granted, though he had been courted by Canadian political parties from all sides of the spectrum during the 1940s, his political philosophy would not be characterized as social democratic. Moreover, we need to keep in mind that McNaughton was not an environmentalist, even by the standards of the 1960s. McNaughton’s grandiose all-Canadian schemes—particularly for the Columbia, including diversions to the Fraser River or to the prairies —would have proven environmentally destructive. We should be glad that his more elaborate plans to replumb rivers in BC never came to pass.

John Shurts and Richard Paisley label the Columbia agreement and its downstream benefits formula an “anachronism” since, from a contemporary vantage point, “the most obvious substantive elements missing from the treaty are fish and wildlife, water quality, and other environmental and ecosystem benefits.” ³⁴ Other scholars have revealed a range of negative ecological impacts, as infrastructure and thousands of people had to be relocated because their land was submerged under the new reservoirs. The remaking of the Columbia, St. Lawrence, and Niagara Rivers exemplified hydraulic imperialism: Indigenous residents of these basins were ignored, their rights and lifeways obliterated. The residences, homelands, and burial places of several Haudenosaunee nations in Ontario and Quebec, and a number of different Indigenous nations in the Pacific Northwest, were literally submerged. Contemporary renegotiations offer an opportunity to right some of these many wrongs.

The St. Lawrence Seaway, for its part, never came close to meeting cargo predictions; indeed, looking at governmental cost–benefit rubrics of the early 1950s, if planners had known how little traffic it would actually carry, they never would have built it. Moreover, it is clear that the Seaway was a financial failure when the ecological costs, including the direct dollar costs of dealing with invasive species let into the Great Lakes basin by the Seaway, are factored in. ³⁵ We also should not ignore the fact that McNaughton’s strong nationalist stance ran counter to the purported nonpartisan ethos of the IJC, and the politicization of this commission bled into other areas.

Thus, another lesson to be learned is that these megaprojects rarely pay off once all long-term costs and benefits are considered. We can admire McNaughton as a nationalist and, at the same time, admit that many of his schemes were mistakes, given our modern ecological hindsight. Nevertheless, as a major mover and shaker in the Canadian–American relationship, McNaughton’s diplomatic career warrants further study.