Do Parties Matter? Canada's Foreign Trade Policy With the United States, 1968-2008.

Conventional wisdom holds that governments matter. That a new government, particularly one of a different political party, will make substantial changes to the policies of the state they were elected to lead. The focus of this paper is on whether party affiliation matters in determining Canada's priorities and policies in its trade relationship with the United States (US). It will compare policy statements and performances of Liberal, Progressive Conservative, and Conservative governments from 1968 to the present and it will argue that party affiliation has had little impact on Canada's US trade policy over this period. The analysis will proceed in four parts. In the first part, the role of political parties in Canada will be outlined briefly. This will be followed by an overview of Canada's exports to the US. The third section of the paper will examine the economic priorities of Canadian governments concerning the US from 1968 to present as gleaned from major policy statements (e.g. white papers and speeches). The final part of the paper will set out some of the reasons why party affiliation has had little substantive impact on Canada's trade policy with the US over the last forty years. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]