CDKW00483 – Contractual Struggles

As the war in Korea stretched on, contracts drawn up hastily after the war’s outbreak in 1950 came up as a frequent matter in cabinet discussions. Arguably Canada’s largest wartime contract was its deal with Canadian Pacific Air Lines, which supplied three-and-a-half flights worth of passenger and mail space every week between Tokyo and Vancouver. Within this memorandum, both positive and negative aspects of the deal are covered; the contract was more expensive than military transport, but maintaining the contract prevented Canadian Pacific Air Lines from entering into any contracts with the United States’ Military Air Transport Service (MATS) and thus reducing Canada’s relative contributions to the conflict. Due to considerations with the limited capacity of the RCAF and fear that Canadian Pacific might turn to the United States, the contract was renewed repeatedly, with minor changes in price and flights, through the spring of 1955. This is a particularly telling example of the problems the Canadian government faced: Ottawa had limited financial and military services to offer and was constantly trying to balance what could be achieved with trying to participate as much as possible to have a better diplomatic position for negotiations after the war.