Former American First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt called for increased trading relations with her northern neighbours on this date in 1949, She did so in one of famed My Day columns. written by Eleanor Roosevelt. These appeared daily in hundreds of newspapers across the United States from 1933 right up until Mrs. Roosevelt’s death in the early 1960s.
You can read highlights of her January 6, 1949 column below.
Hon. Eleanor Roosevelt: I was much interested in the survey published in the New York Tribune covering "The Trend of Canadian Economy." It is pleasant to have the new Prime Minister, the Rt. Hon. L.S. St. Laurent, say "the degree of Canada's prosperity is in large part dependent on conditions outside our borders."
“The maintenance of a higher level of trade between the United States and Canada," he went on, "is a major factor in keeping up the high standards of living for both our peoples.”
This is much the same doctrine that his predecessor, the Rt. Hon. W.L. Mackenzie King would have enunciated, I feel sure. The long period of peace between our countries plus the new economic developments in Canada are going to make it more important than ever that there exist close economic ties between our countries. People from the United States made up the greatest number of tourists that Canada received during the past year, and tourists bring money into a country. But general trade can be developed between our countries to a far greater extent than it has been in the past—and to our mutual advantage.
Wise words.
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.