This thesis examines the development of Japanese economic interest in Canada between 1978 and 1988, with a special emphasis on multinational decision making. The paper takes an eclectic approach to the issue because the trends within different industrial sectors varied widely, from strong growth in forestry investment and trade to slow expansions of technological ties. As a result of the increasing importance of the United States and the European Economic Community in the eyes of Japanese managers, coupled with the decline of the energy crisis in mid decade, resource suppliers like Canada declined in relative importance to Japan during this period, although Japanese investment and trade here expanded steadily in real terms. / Arts, Faculty of / History, Department of / Graduate

This paper is an attempt to look at the possibilities behind the federal government of Canada's proposal to create a new agency in the area of industrial export trade. According to the premises set down by the Government in its April 1980, Throne Speech, the initiative is primarily aimed at supporting small and medium-sized businesses in their efforts to penetrate foreign markets. It is natural for a government concerned with increasing competition abroad and rising unemployment in the industrial sector at home to start worrying about where industrial employment and overseas industrial markets are going to come from in the future. The wording of the Throne Speech and the policy studies undertaken prior to April 1980, regarding a potential national trading company seem to indicate that the Government had had the Japanese example of the trading house structure very much in mind, when closer study of such an enterprise was proposed, given Japan's thriving industrial sector and its successful export achievements. In the aftermath of the Throne Speech a Special Committee of the House of Commons was created in June of 1980 to further study the question of a future "National Trading Corporation." The Committee came down with its fourth and final report, Canada's Trading Challenge, in June of 1981, in which its basic recommendation after a year of deliberations was that "the federal government sponsor the development of a major Canadian trading corporation." This final conclusion by the Committee stands in direct contrast to evidence presented by witnesses before the Committee, and it seems to be an opinion reached by the Committee majority based on material and opinions obtained in addition to the briefs and the evidence gathered during the Committee's public hearings. / Arts, Faculty of / Political Science, Department of / Graduate