Canada Africa Relations

A wave of optimism has swept the African continent in the past decade. The pace and extent of social change in recent years, when measured in life expectancy, child and infant mortality rates, literacy, numeracy and the completion of higher education, is quite remarkable. The urban middle class is emerging and expanding in many African countries, while political democracy is developing and strengthening. These positive changes are generating economic growth and attracting foreign investment across the continent, especially in the resource sector. But Africa is still viewed by many as the “dark continent” dealing with serious problems — civil wars, ethnic division, corruption, HIV/AIDS, poverty, food security and the disastrous effects of climate change — and these issues may well impede the upward trajectory of Africa. Canada-Africa Relations: Looking Back, Looking Ahead — the 27th volume of the influential Canada Among Nations series — analyzes the ebb and flow of Canada’s engagement with Sub-Saharan Africa through different lenses over the past few decades and also looks to the future, highlighting the opportunities and the difficulties that exist for Canada and Sub-Saharan Africa. It is clear that a new Africa is emerging, and Canada must be prepared to change the nature of its relationship with the continent.

After over fifty-years of Canadian engagement with Africa, no comprehensive literature exists on Canada's security policy in Africa and relations towards Africa's regional organizations. The literature on Canada's foreign policy in Africa to date has largely focused on development assistance. For the first time, Edward Akuffo combines historical and contemporary material on Canada's development and security policy while analyzing the linkage between these sets of foreign policy practices on the African continent. The book makes an important contribution to the debate on Canada's foreign policy generally, and on Africa's approach to peace, security and development, while shedding light on a new theoretical lens - non-imperial internationalism - to understand Canada's foreign policy. The author captures an emerging trend of cooperation on peace, security, and development between the Canadian government and African regional organizations in the twenty-first century. The resulting book is a valuable addition to the literature on African politics, new regionalisms, foreign policy, global governance, and international development studies.

This book originated as a doctoral thesis for the Institute of Commonwealth Studies of the University of London. It is about the history of South Africa and Canada.

Canada’s engagement with post-independence Africa presents a puzzle. Although Canada is recognized for its activism where Africa is concerned, critics have long noted the contradictions that underlie Canadian involvement. Focusing on the period following 2000, and by juxtaposing Jean Chrétien’s G8 activism with the Harper government’s retreat from continental engagement, David R. Black’s Canada and Africa in the New Millennium illustrates a history of consistent inconsistency in Canada’s relationship with Africa. Black combines three interpretive frames to account for this record: the tradition of “good international citizenship”; Canada’s role as a benign face of Western hegemonic interests in Africa; and Africa’s role as the basis for a longstanding narrative concerning Canada’s ethical mission in the world. To examine Africa’s place in Canada’s foreign policy—and Canada’s place in Africa—Black focuses on G8 diplomacy, foreign aid, security assistance through peace operations and training, and the increasingly controversial impact of Canadian extractive companies. Offering an integrated account of Canada’s role in sub-Saharan Africa, Black provides a way of understanding the nature and resilience of recent shifts in Canadian policy. He underscores how Africa—though marginal to Canadian interests as traditionally conceived—has served as an important marker of Canada’s international role.

Using extensive archival research, Gendron rebuts the argument of Quebec nationalists and scholars that the Canadian government's neglect of French Africa forced Quebec to develop its own international identity. Towards a Francophone Community shows that there had been active federal interest in French African affairs since the late 1940s, within the context of developments in NATO and the Cold War, the vagaries of Canada's relations with France, and the Quiet Revolution in Quebec.

With reference to global governance initiatives aimed at promoting ethical business practices, this volume offers a timely examination of Canada-Africa relations and natural resource governance.

Yves Engler continues his groundbreaking analyses of past and present Canadian foreign policy. The author of The Black Book of Canadian Foreign Policy, and other works that challenge the myth of Canadian benevolence, documents Canadian involvement in the transatlantic slave trade, the "scramble for Africa" and European colonialism. The book reveals Ottawa's opposition to anticolonial struggles, its support for apartheid South Africa and Idi Amin's coup, and its role in ousting independence leaders Patrice Lumumba and Kwame Nkrumah. Based on an exhaustive look at the public record as well as on-the-ground research, Canada in Africa shows how the federal government pressed African countries to follow neoliberal economic prescriptions and sheds light on Canada's part in the violence that has engulfed Somalia, Rwanda and the Congo, as well as how Canada's indifference to climate change means a death sentence to ever-growing numbers of Africans.

The Ambiguous Champion is the First Comprehensive and critical study of Canadian foreign policy towards South Africa. Freeman challenges the conventional belief that successive Canadian governments took the high road, leading the international struggle against apartheid. She shows that Canadian policy, like the policy of other Western states, was complex, ambiguous, and contradictory. Freeman's approach offers an alternative understanding of the forces shaping Canadian foreign policy. Legend has it that Canadian prime ministers, from Diefenbaker to Mulroney, led the way in the international campaign against the apartheid state in South Africa. Yet before Mulroney came to power, except on a few occasions in the Commonwealth, Canadian prime ministers did little to support the anti-apartheid cause. While Mulroney did significantly better, invoking concrete economic sanctions and tackling Margaret Thatcher within the Commonwealth, the policies of his government were compromised and limited; the claims made for it excessive. The state championed a cause, but followed through in a highly ambiguous way. Central to the explanation is an exploration of the influence groups within civil society, especially the private sector, on the formation of state policy. Attention is also given to the way which churches, trade unions, universities, anti-apartheid groups, and the media played in calling for a stronger Canadian policy against apartheid. The approach offers an alternative way of understanding how foreign policy is made which goes beyond the South African case. The Ambiguous Champion will challenge scholars in Canada and abroad in their analyses of relations with South Africa. It is a majorcontribution to both the history and theory of Canadian foreign policy.