1. Not much has been written about the NEP in a sustained and analytical way. Certainly all newspapers in Canada carried stories on its announcement in August 1971 and the hardships that would be visited upon the country if an exemption was not secured. However, their coverage quickly moved on to other events. Similarly, Canadian historians, with a few exceptions, have not dealt with the NEP as it affected Canada in the months after its implementation in much detail. Of more importance to them was Ottawa's reaction, which became the Third Option policy of September 1972 and what flowed from that. This article is an attempt to begin the process of sketching in the detail surrounding President Nixon's program as it affected Canada and the Canadian response, the Third Option. For historians writing on this topic, see Robert Bothwell, “Canada-United States Relations,”(Winter 2002–03);
2. J.L. Granatstein and Robert Bothwell,(Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1990); J.L. Granatstein and Norman Hillmer,(Toronto Copp Clark Pitman, 1991); John Herd Thompson and Stephen J. Randall,(Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1994); forthcoming, Bruce Muirhead,(Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2005). This field has been better covered by political scientists, at least in terms of the analysis. See, for example, Peter C. Dobell, “Negotiating with the United States,” in J.L. Granatstein, ed.(Toronto: Copp Clark Pitman, 1992); Peter Dobell, “Reducing Vulnerability: the Third Option, 1970s,” in Don Munton and John Kirton, eds.(Scarborough, Ont.: Prentice-Hall, 1992); Harald von Riekhoff, “The Third Option in Canadian Foreign Policy,” in Brian W. Tomlin, ed.(Toronto Methuen, 1978); Bruce Thordarson,(Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1972); Tom Keating,(Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1993).
3. The IET, if fully applied to Canada, would have increased the cost of borrowing money in the United States by about one percent. Dependent upon foreign loans for economic development and to balance its international current account, Canada would have been badly off. Canada was also exempted from the 1965 Johnson guidelines relating to the patriation of profits to the U.S. of American firms operating overseas, as well as the 1968 program. Similarly, in the late 1950s, President Eisenhower gave the Canadian government what amounted to a veto over U.S. sales of wheat in some markets.
4. For an excellent discussion of the various points of the special relationship, see Stephen Clarkson,Uncle Sam and Us: Globalization, Neoconservatism and the Canadian State(Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2002), pp. 22–5.
5. Bank of Canada Archives, Ottawa, Canada, Louis Rasminsky Papers, LR76-374-1, Prime Minister's Meeting with the President of the United States, 6 December 1971.