Canada was no scientific powerhouse at the beginning of the Second World War. Industrial research was almost non-existent, the scientific facilities at the nation’s few universities were small, underfunded, and ill equipped. Aside from the laboratories maintained by the National Research Council in Ottawa, there seemed little capacity to invent, develop, or adapt weaponry or explosives. The war changed all this dramatically, and almost miraculously Canadian scientists began to work with the Canadian armed services on a range of ABCW (atomic, bacteriological, and chemical warfare) projects and to participate in the development of radar, proximity fuses, and new types of explosives. The change occurred because Ottawa poured money into research projects and Canadians found themselves working with British and American researchers, giving them access to key people and fresh ideas.

These developments helped markedly in winning the war and creating a scientific establishment of inestimable value for the postwar years.

But there was a price, as Donald H. Avery, a professor of history at the University of Western Ontario, demonstrates in this important study. The British were never very well organized and they played the Imperial power game with Canada in ways that often infuriated scientists and their military and political masters; the Americans were easier to work with, but they were far more conscious of security and gradually imposed their controls over Canadian scientists in their ambit. (Not that this prevented Soviet spying in Canada or the U.S.!) The Americans also became technically far more advanced than the British in most fields, and Canadians sensibly gravitated into the U.S. orbit, exactly as was occurring simultaneously in the trade and financial areas.

Avery lays out his story quite neatly by making full use of his impressive research in international archives, and his prose is clear. Unfortunately, he has an annoying habit of getting titles, ranks, and simple facts wrong (Parliament does not pass orders-in-council, to cite just one example), and this may inevitably weaken confidence in his overall argument. It shouldn’t, however, for there can be no doubt of the broad outlines of this study or of its importance.