bout de papier, Vol. 9, No. 1 (1992) — Winter 1992 // Hiver 1992, pp. 42–43
Canada and the Commonwealth
Caribbean, edited by Brian Douglas
Tennyson, University Press of America,
1988, 395 pages, $49.95.
The Commonwealth Caribbean has had ties with Canada stretching back into the eighteenth century colonial system. Yet it, like Latin America, to which it is now more bureaucratically linked, has remained less attractive to the aspiring Foreign Service Officer than have other parts of the world. Not so many years ago, an Under-Secretary of State for External Affairs (USS) gave fatherly advice to an ambitious recruit whose dreams of Paris or London as a first posting had been shattered by orders to the Caribbean region. The USS said that given the number of Canada’s diplomatic posts one was sure to have to go there once in one’s career so why not start off there? A sensible approach, but daunting to a junior officer conditioned to think within the framework of the North Atlantic triangle. There was little readily available information to help in understanding Canada’s relations with the region. Today that is no longer the case. This handy collection of the best of the limited number of articles on Canadian- Commonwealth Caribbean relations will be very important to those involved.
Not surprisingly, Canada’s trade links since 1783 have been mentioned in most of the articles and even the pre-1912 ties have a contemporary flavour given the discussions on the search for reciprocity. P.K. Newman indicates in his 1960 article that “the relative failure of past attempts to stimulate trade indicates that it might be a good idea to investigate somewhat critically the foundations of economic relations between the two areas.” This advice did not appear to do much good if post-1960 trade activities are a clue, as Glen Berry’s 1977 study on Present Trends and Future Prospects later showed.
When winter comes, there is usually some dreamer who has enough of a public platform to receive press attention over the idea of Canada acquiring a West Indian province. Alice Stewart, Brinsley Samaroo and P.G. Wigley have provided insights on that urge, which began in the 1880s, driven by commercial and imperialist impulses rather than a desire for a winter haven with beaches and a tropical sun. Ottawa preferred not to push the addition of a largely nonwhite population into Confederation; it also trembled at the prospect of providing defence for the area.
Both race and defence played a role in the bilateral relations. Canada has subsequently changed its immigration pattern but, as John Schultze indicated in his study of the period 1900-1965, “Immigration Branch officials appointed themselves guardians of Canada’s racial purity” and managed to maintain their view until 1965. Only the frustration of other departments including External Affairs, Industry, Trade and Commerce, and National Defence finally forced Immigration to alter its ways. As for defence, Canada may have been reluctant to take on Caribbean defence but, ironically, it had to contribute to that defence in both world wars. David Murray discussed that activity while Richard Preston, in 1971, wondered how far Canada’s “special relationship” should go in involving itself with military, technical and training assistance. He suggested that this should not be too far.
Twenty years ago, the Commonwealth Caribbean regularly received a large share of Canada’s official development assistance. This changed when Canada’s aid policies extended beyond the Commonwealth into Francophone Africa and Latin America. Canada’s urge to render development assistance reflects Canada’s missionary heritage. Protestant and Catholic missionaries began leaving Canada in the mid-nineteenth century, intent on improving the living conditions and on saving souls. In the Caribbean case, Graeme Mount shows that Nova Scotian Presbyterians began to support a mission to Trinidad as early as 1868. The Rev. John Morton was not all that successful as an evangelizer, but he had an important influence in education among East Indian indentured labourers. More recently, secular “missionaries” from CIDA and CUSO have been pushing the Canadian way of life, leading Ralph Paragg to question whether Canada’s activities have been “neo-colonialism or development”.. It may be a question which Canada’s representatives in the Commonwealth Caribbean will still have to resolve.
The Commonwealth Caribbean no longer has the special place it once held in Canada’s external relations. Yet, as Tennyson’s collection of essays indicates, it is unlikely to fall too far into obscurity. The links with Canada are just too enduring.
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Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 9, No. 1 (1992) — Winter 1992 // Hiver 1992, pp. 42–43. Read the rest of this issue →
