Page "Saint Lawrence Seaway" Paragraph 4

In the post-1945 years, proposals to introduce tolls still could not induce the U. S. Congress to approve the project.

Growing impatient, and with Ontario desperate for hydro-electricity, Canada began to consider " going it alone.

" This seized the imagination of Canadians, engendering a groundswell of St. Lawrence nationalism.

Fueled by this support, the government of Louis St. Laurent decided over the course of 1951 and 1952 to construct the waterway alone, combined with the Moses-Saunders Power Dam ( which would prove to be the joint responsibility of Ontario and New York: as a power dam would change the water levels, it required bilateral cooperation ).

However, the Truman and Eisenhower administrations considered it a national security threat for Canada to alone control the deep waterway, and used various means-such as delaying and stalling the Federal Power Commission license for the power aspect-until Congress in early 1954 approved an American seaway role via the Wiley-Dondero act.

Canada, out of concern for the ramifications of the bilateral relationship, reluctantly acquiesced.