Reagan forever tied to free trade

Published June 16, 2004

There was Franklin D. Roosevelt. And then there was Ronald Reagan. Of all American presidents in the past half-century, indeed through our entire history, these two have decisively affected Canadians in ways that no others have approached even remotely.

In Roosevelt's case, the transformational event was the Ogdensburg agreement of 1940 by which the U.S. took over responsibility for the defence of...