Prime Minister Louis St.-Laurent’s foreign minister, Lester B. Pearson, was attending international meetings in Paris on this date in 1954. While in the French capital, he also met privately with U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles. The defence of Canada’s North, and ever-present Canadian sensibilities, were on the future Prime Minister’s mind.
You can read highlights of the pair’s discussion below. The report comes from the American note-taker present.
“Mr. Pearson mentioned the implications of the development of the Far North (radar) Line. He said the Canadians were of course all for this but that obviously when it was completed it would require fighter stations in the Far North. This in turn would place an added requirement on the Canadian Air Force. He said that it would be politically impossible for the Canadians if part of this requirement was met by moving in American fighter squadrons at a time when part of the Canadian Air Force was physically located in Europe. He doubted that under these circumstances Canada would be able to make the additional effort and he was inclined to think that when this need arose it would be necessary for Canada to pull back from NATO assignment in Europe some or all of their squadrons in order to fill their northern defense needs. He said, however, that this was not a question which would arise for three or four years.”
Arthur Milnes is an accomplished public historian and award-winning journalist. He was research assistant on The Rt. Hon. Brian Mulroney’s best-selling Memoirs and also served as a speechwriter to then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper and as a Fellow of the Queen’s Centre for the Study of Democracy under the leadership of Tom Axworthy. A resident of Kingston, Ontario, Milnes serves as the in-house historian at the 175 year-old Frontenac Club Hotel.