The moment when Canada moved from Britain’s orbit into America’s can be dated precisely to Aug. 17, 1940.
That was the day when Canadian prime minister William Mackenzie King and U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed the Ogdensburg Agreement that defined the principle of the joint defence of North America.
The agreement, drafted in pencil and without consultation with either cabinet, established the Permanent Joint Board of Defence that has been in place ever since.
