Highlights from the presidents and PMs over the decades as they addressed our Parliament, and history, from the floor of the House
When Joe Biden took his turn at the podium in Canada’s House of Commons, it marked the 11th time an American president has addressed a joint session of Parliament.
In 1943, Franklin Roosevelt became the first American chief executive to speak before MPs and senators, while the last such presidential address in Ottawa was delivered by President Barack Obama in 2016. Along the way, Republicans Dwight Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan each spoke to Parliament twice.
These rare events put speechwriters in both the White House and the Prime Minister’s Office, along with their principals, to the test as the addresses delivered by the visiting presidents and the introductions of the distinguished visitors to Canada by prime ministers, are in many ways the rhetorical crown jewel of Canadian-American bilateral relations.
In preparing their speeches, all presidents and prime ministers stand in the bright shadow of John F. Kennedy, who famously said in his speech to Parliament in May of 1961, “Geography has made us neighbours. History has made us friends. Economics has made us partners, and necessity has made us allies. Those whom God has so joined together, let no man put asunder.”
Below are highlights from the presidents and the prime ministers over the decades as they addressed our Parliament, and history, from the floor of the House of Commons.
Franklin Roosevelt, Aug. 25, 1943:
“The evil characteristic that makes a Nazi is his utter inability to understand, and therefore to respect, the qualities or the rights of his fellow men. His only method of dealing with his neighbour is first to delude him with lies, then to attack him treacherously, then to beat him down and step on him, and then either to kill him or enslave him. And the same thing is true of the fanatical militarists of Japan. Because their own instincts and impulses are essentially inhuman, our enemies simply cannot comprehend how it is that decent, sensible, individual human beings manage to get along together and to live together as good neighbours.”
Harry S. Truman, June 11, 1947:
“We seek a peaceful world, a prosperous world, a free world, a world of good neighbours, living on terms of equality and mutual respect, as Canada and the United States have lived for generations … We intend to uphold those who respect the dignity of the individual, who guarantee to him equal treatment under the law, and who allow him the widest possible liberty to work out his own destiny and achieve success to the limit of his capacity. We intend to co-operate actively and loyally with all who honestly seek, as we do, to build a better world in which mankind can live in peace and prosperity. We count Canada in the forefront of those who share these objectives and ideals. With such friends we face the future unafraid.”
Dwight Eisenhower, Nov. 14, 1953:
“More than friendship and partnership is signified in the relations between our countries. These relations that today enrich our peoples justify the faith of our fathers that men, given self-government, can dwell at peace among themselves, progressive in the development of their material wealth, quick to join in the defence of their spiritual community, ready to arbitrate differences that may arise to divide them. This Parliament is an illustrious symbol of human craving, a human search, a human right to self-government.”
Dwight Eisenhower, July 9, 1958:
“We both recognize a design of aggressive Communist imperialism which threatens every free nation. Both of us face a military threat and political attack. Our system of free enterprise is challenged throughout the world by a state-directed, state-controlled economic system. This could well be the area in which the competition will be most bitter and most decisive between the free world and Communist imperialism. We must never allow ourselves to become so preoccupied with any differences between our two nations that we lose sight of the transcendent importance of free world co-operation in the winning of the global struggle.”
John F. Kennedy, May 17, 1961:
“At the conference table and in the minds of men, the free world’s cause is strengthened because it is just. But it is strengthened even more by the dedicated efforts of free men and free nations. As the great parliamentarian Edmund Burke said: ‘The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.’ And that, in essence, is why I am here today. This trip is more than a consultation — more than a goodwill visit. It is an act of faith — faith in your country, in your leaders — faith in the capacity of two great neighbours to meet their common problems — and faith in the cause of freedom, in which we are so intimately associated.”
Richard Nixon, April 14, 1972:
“Through the years, our speeches on such occasions have often centred on the decades of unbroken friendship that we have enjoyed, and on our 4,000 miles of unfortified boundary. In focusing on our peaceful borders and our peaceful history, they have tended to gloss over the fact that there are real problems between us. They have tended to create the false impression that our countries are essentially alike. It is time for Canadians and Americans to move beyond the sentimental rhetoric of the past. It is time for us to recognize that we have very separate identities; that we have significant differences; and that nobody’s interests are furthered when these realities are obscured.”
Ronald Reagan, March 11, 1981:
“If you will forgive me, you know someone has once likened government to a baby. It is an alimentary canal with an appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other. But our citizens were being thrown into higher tax brackets for simply trying to keep pace with inflation. In the just the last five years, federal personal taxes for the average American household have increased 58 per cent. The results: crippling inflation, interest rates which went above 20 per cent, a national debit approaching a trillion dollars, nearly eight million people out of work, and a steady three-year decline in productivity. We decided not just to complain, but to act.”
Ronald Reagan, April 6, 1987:
“I was struck recently by the words of a Canadian — a Hungarian-Canadian, you might call him — who came to this country, as so many before him, to escape oppression. ‘I wanted to stretch,’ he said. ‘I needed a place where I could move mountains or carry larger stones than Sisyphus, and here was the place for it. Nobody telling me what I’m supposed to believe, as a Canadian, gave me a kind of freedom for my mind and my spirit and my creative energies that I had never experienced before in life. And I found that for me anyhow, anything could be possible here.’ This is your Canada, and our continent. This is the chosen place in history our two nations occupy: a land where the mind and heart of man is free, a land of peace, a land where indeed anything is possible.”
Bill Clinton, Feb. 23, 1995:
“We are two nations blessed with great resources and great histories. And we have great responsibilities. We were built, after all, by men and women who fled the tyranny and intolerance of the Old World for the new. We are the nations of pioneers, people who were armed with the confidence they needed to strike out on their own and to have the talents that God gave them shape their dreams in a new and different land. Culture and tradition, to be sure, distinguish us from one another in many ways that all of us are still learning about every day. But we share core values, and that is more important, a devotion to hard work, an ardent belief in democracy, a commitment to giving each and every citizen the right to live up to his or her God-given potential, and an understanding of what we owe to the world for the gifts we have been given.”
Barack Obama, June 29, 2016:
“In a world where too many borders are a source of conflict, our two countries are joined by the longest border of peace on Earth. And what makes our relationship so unique is not just proximity. It’s our enduring commitment to a set of values a spirit, alluded to by Justin, that says no matter who we are, where we come from, what our last names are, what faith we practise, here we can make of our lives what we will. It was the grit of pioneers and prospectors who pushed West across a forbidding frontier. The dreams of generations — immigrants, refugees — that we’ve welcomed to these shores. The hope of runaway slaves who went north on an underground railroad. ‘Deep in our history of struggle,’ said Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., ‘Canada was the North Star … The freedom road links us together.’ ”
Welcome, Mr. President …
“We have Iong known that your services to the cause of freedom far exceed limits of race and bounds of nationality. We honour you as an undaunted champion of the rights of free men and a mighty leader of the forces of freedom in a world at war. We feel, too, a special affection for a lifelong friend of our country.”
— Prime Minister Mackenzie King, welcoming President Franklin Roosevelt to Parliament, Aug. 25, 1943
“Far be it from me to introduce any note of party polities into words of official welcome, much less to say anything that, even to appearances, might be considered interference in the domestic affairs of another country. At the same time, I think that all of us in public life would agree that to be faced with a legislature of which the majority may be disinclined to accept the government’s policies is not the most comfortable position in which to find oneself as head of an administration. Because of a considerable experience in such matters, I may perhaps be allowed, in an aside to the President, to express a personal word of sympathy and understanding.”
— Prime Minister Mackenzie King, welcoming President Harry S. Truman to Parliament, June 11, 1947
“By positive and unselfish actions, which are unique in history, the American people have recognized that threats to the safety and well-being of liberty-laving peoples anywhere are threats to all peoples everywhere who believe in the dignity and freedom of the individual. Your nation’s contributions to the restoration of war-devastated lands have been generous to an extent unprecedented in international relations.”
— Prime Minister Louis St-Laurent, welcoming President Dwight Eisenhower to Parliament, Nov. 13, 1953
“In visiting us unaccompanied by pomp and circumstance the president is following an old and precious precedent in the relations of our two nations. Although you come to us, sir, as the head of a powerful state, the intelligence service informs me after diligent inquiry that you come bearing no arms and carry no armour other than a brassie and a putter. May I, sir, as an aside express the wish that under clear skies and on fairways not too narrow you will be able, while here, to use this armour and add to your list of victories.”
— Prime Minister John Diefenbaker, welcoming President Dwight Eisenhower to Parliament, July 9, 1958
“I express the wish, not only on behalf of my fellow Canadians but of all people who love freedom everywhere that you may be richly endowed — in thought with faith, in words with wisdom, in deed with courage, and always in service. In these qualities is greatness. These qualities I have in mind when I present to the Senate and the House of Commons the President of the United States.”
— Prime Minister John Diefenbaker, welcoming President John F. Kennedy to Parliament, May 17, 1961
“Our relationship with you is too complex to be described, too involved to be understood fully, too deeply entrenched to be disregarded. We are no more capable of living in isolation from you than we are desirous of doing so. For those reasons, the basic friendship of Canada in the past several decades has been taken for granted by the United States, as we have accepted yours. I assure you that that friendship will continue for it is a permanent feature of our relationship with you. It will adjust to circumstance and be made mare articulate in the process, but it is not regarded by us as negotiable.”
— Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau, welcoming President Richard Nixon to Parliament, April 14, 1972
“Mr. President, you are visiting Canada at a particularly turbulent time in our history. We are in the process of completing the construction of our country. As an American you will appreciate the challenge which we must face. We are attempting to improve our democratic system and to cement our unity. Undoubtedly the din of our labour will reach your ears. However, I can assure you that our stormy but productive discussions will pave the way for a stronger Canada. Indeed, if I may recall a humorist’s description of a megalopolis, we have decided that at the close of our current debates we will be “‘more than a confederation of “shopping centres.’ ”
— Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau, welcoming President Ronald Reagan to Parliament, March 11, 1981
“Canadians view with increasing concern the effects of acid rain upon our environment. But this is more than a Canadian problem. It is a transboundary problem which requires a transboundary response. I urgently invite the United States administration and the American Congress to join with this Parliament, and the Government of Canada in concluding a firm bilateral accord which will provide a North American solution to acid rain. In this matter, time is not our ally but our enemy. The longer we delay, the greater the cost. For what would be said of a generation that sought the stars but permitted its lakes and streams to languish and die?”
— Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, welcoming President Ronald Reagan to Parliament, April 6, 1987
“Mr. President, you may not know it, but among your predecessors who have addressed the Parliament of Canada during your lifetime are Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan. They all had one thing in common. They were all elected for a second term. Now, that might not seem like such a remarkable coincidence. But look at the recent presidents who have not addressed the Canadian Parliament: Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and George Bush. I will, however, refrain from drawing any conclusions from that, Mr. President. Some hon. members: Hear, hear. As you know, Canada adheres strictly to a policy of non-interference and non-intervention.”
— Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, introducing President Bill Clinton to Parliament, Feb. 23, 1995
“Canadians and Americans are united in our understanding that diversity is a source of strength, not weakness. Generation after generation, our countries have welcomed newcomers seeking liberty and the promise of a better life. And generation after generation, our identities and our economies have been enriched by these new perspectives, not threatened by them. The North American idea that diversity is strength is our great gift to the world. No matter where you’re from or the faith you profess, or the colour of your skin, nor whom you love, you belong here. This is home.”
— Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, introducing President Barack Obama to Parliament, June 29, 2016
Complied by Kingston’s Arthur Milnes, a past speechwriter to then Prime Minister Stephen J. Harper, and the memoirs’ assistant to the Right Honourable Brian Mulroney. Milnes is the author of 98 Reasons to Thank Jimmy Carter and the editor of In Roosevelt’s Bright Shadow: Presidential Addresses and Stories About Canada from Taft to Obama. He is also co-editor (with Scotty Greenwood and Scott Reid) of the Canadian-American Business Council’s With Faith and Goodwill: Chronicling the Canada-U.S. Friendship.
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