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"We [Canadians] spend half our time persuading the Americans we aren't British, and the other half persuading the British we aren't Americans," were the words of a song in a college revue at McGill University in the 1950s. Right after the Second World War, the lyrics represented the temper of the times. It made us chuckle.

Fifty years later, the times and our relationships have changed. The British connection, strong then, is now a fading memory. Today, we are engrossed in our relations with the United States because that is where our primary interest lies economically, politically, militarily and, some would say, spiritually.

But in the past few years Canada has angered Americans by our seeming indifference to their worries about terrorism, our official unwillingness to join a "coalition of the willing" to fight Saddam Hussein in Iraq and the failure of the prime minister to temper the vocal anti-Americanism in his office, his cabinet and his caucus.

There is also a widening gap between what we say and what we do that has left a lot of Canadians and Americans puzzled.

Bursts of anti-Americanism are nothing new. Our history over the past 200-plus years has been full of worries about American might and power. It started when the US won its War of Independence in the 1770s, continued through the War of 1812 when the Americans invaded Canada, and reached a high level of crisis after the American Civil War when there was a real threat that the victorious Union Army would march north.

We also fought pitched political battles with the British over control of our political institutions and our military through the nineteenth century. And in both world wars, Canadian governments of the day wrestled fiercely in war councils in Europe to have Canadian soldiers and airmen operate under Canadian command.

But there was hardly a whimper over the past 30-plus years as we integrated our air forces in the North American Aerospace Defence Command (NORAD) and joined much of our navy with the US Navy. There is now a very high degree of integration of the two services.

An example of the effect of the NORAD integration was pointed out by former Brigadier General Don Macnamara, in a Policy Options article about what happened at NORAD headquarters in Colorado Springs on September 11, 2001, when the hijacked terrorist airplanes began attacking New York and Washington. "Canadian Forces officers who happened to be in 'command chairs' at NORAD…took control as the details of the attack emerged, scrambled interceptors that were airborne within six minutes of the order, and cleared all North American airspace," he said. Can you get more integrated than that?

The Canadian navy's interoperability with the US Navy is more recent, but no less real. We have 16 major surface warships, including 12 state-of-the-art Halifax class frigates, according to Professor Joel J. Sokolsky of the Department of Political Science at the Royal Military College. In a Choices paper on national security and interoperabilty, he said that "during the Gulf War (1991) the Canadian Task Group commander was the only non-American Warfare Commander because of the compatibility and interoperability of Canadian ships with those of the US and other allies." And the Canadian ships have stayed in the Persian Gulf.

Quoting a 2001 Canadian Department of National Defence paper, he added: "The integrated combat system of the Halifax class patrol frigates has allowed these ships to integrate 'seamlessly into USN carrier battle groups deployed to the Persian (Arabian) Gulf in continued enforcement of the United Nations resolution against Iraq.'"

So, it is clear we are part of the fighting force in the Persian Gulf. But official Ottawa is being disingenuous in suggesting our ships and aircraft are in the Persian Gulf to fight terrorism and play no part in the war on Iraq. In a recent speech American Ambassador Paul Cellucci pointed out that "Canadian naval vessels, aircraft and military personnel continue anti-terrorist operations in the Persian Gulf…Ironically, the Canadian naval vessels, aircraft and personnel in the Persian Gulf…will provide more support indirectly to this war in Iraq than most of the 46 countries that are supporting our efforts there."

By now, the Americans know we aren't British and the British know we aren't Americans. But, strangely, the message to our military in the Persian Gulf is they should not admit they are Canadians.

James Ferrabee, an award-winning journalist, was foreign correspondent for Southam News and an editor at The Gazette. He is contributing editor of Policy Options, the 10-times-a-year public policy magazine of the IRPP. He is also a senior media advisor to the IRPP.

He encourages comments on this and other articles to jferrabee@irpp.org.