The North Atlantic Triangle and Canadian ‘Humanitarian’ Policy in the Second World War

This article moves away from high politics and strategic policy to examine Canada’s ‘humanitarian’ foreign policy, with reference to Ottawa’s involvement in Allied relief operations on behalf of prisoners in Europe and the Far East during the Second World War. When war broke out in 1939, Canada was the only Dominion not to comply with London’s request that all communications with Washington be channelled through the Foreign Office. Instead, Ottawa decided to establish direct relations with the United States government in its capacity as Canada’s ‘protecting power’ with responsibility for representing Canadian interests in enemy territory. This situation obviously changed in December 1941, when the USA entered the war but the ‘humanitarian’ relationship between Ottawa and Washington grew even closer, a development that was mirrored, and to some extent reinforced, by closer cooperation between non-governmental relief agencies. However, Canada’s tendency to put the interests of her own prisoners of war before those of the USA or the British Empire underlined the tensions inherent within the North Atlantic Triangle.