Background
In 1944, the Canadian and U.S. governments agreed to begin studying the potential for joint development of dams in the Columbia River basin. Planning efforts were slow until a 1948 Columbia River flood caused extensive damage from Trail, British Columbia, to Cathlamet, Washington, completely destroying Vanport, the second largest city in Oregon. The increased interest in flood protection and the growing need for power development initiated 11 years of discussion and alternative proposals for construction of dams in Canada. In 1959, the governments issued a report that recommended principles for negotiating an agreement and apportioning the costs and benefits. Formal negotiations began in February 1960 and the Treaty was signed January 17, 1961 by Prime Minister Diefenbaker and President Eisenhower. The Treaty was not implemented, however, until over three years later due to extensive fighting between Ottawa and British Columbia over Canadian rights and obligations outlined in the Treaty.
Read more about this topic: Columbia River Treaty
Famous quotes containing the word background:
“I had many problems in my conduct of the office being contrasted with President Kennedy’s conduct in the office, with my manner of dealing with things and his manner, with my accent and his accent, with my background and his background. He was a great public hero, and anything I did that someone didn’t approve of, they would always feel that President Kennedy wouldn’t have done that.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)
“They were more than hostile. In the first place, I was a south Georgian and I was looked upon as a fiscal conservative, and the Atlanta newspapers quite erroneously, because they didn’t know anything about me or my background here in Plains, decided that I was also a racial conservative.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)
“Silence is the universal refuge, the sequel to all dull discourses and all foolish acts, a balm to our every chagrin, as welcome after satiety as after disappointment; that background which the painter may not daub, be he master or bungler, and which, however awkward a figure we may have made in the foreground, remains ever our inviolable asylum, where no indignity can assail, no personality can disturb us.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)