Mackenzie King and the St Pierre and Miquelon Crisis of 1941

Abstract

The St Pierre and Miquelon affair is perhaps the classic example of a Canadian phenomenon whereby the net effect of the country’s unusual domestic and international position serves to paralyse Canadian policy. For nearly two years the Canadian military pushed the government to do something about the islands, and for two years the Cabinet – caught between the demands of the British and the Americans, and always concerned about the potential domestic repercussions of any move that involved France – refused to act. And so it did nothing – nothing, that is, until the Cabinet arrived at a tentative plan (initially suggested by the Americans) for the takeover of the radio station on St Pierre. But the plan, in the end, was too heavy-handed for the Americans and too weak for the British, so the Cabinet drew back again to consider the merits of its proposal, unable to take action against two minute and undefended islands just miles from Canada’s shore, held by a potentially hostile power in the middle of a world war.