Towards a Canadian Policy on Africa
| Date | 01 December 1960 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070206001500402 |
| Published date | 01 December 1960 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
Towards
a
Canadian
Policy
on
Africa
DOUGLAS
G.
ANGLIN*
HE
three
grand
climacterics
of
the
past
decade
have
been
Tthe
death
of
Stalin,
the
launching of
Sputnik
and
the
col-
lapse
of
colonialism
in
Africa.
Less
than
five
years
ago,
virtually
all
of
Africa
was
still
under European
rule.
Today,
there
are
some
twenty-five
independent
states.
More
than
two-
thirds
of
the
population
is
free
of
Western
colonialism,
and
the
rest,
except
for
Southern
Africa
and
Algeria,
is
within
sight
of
that
goal.
The
extent
and
rapidity
of
this
political
transformation
is
staggering
to
the
imagination.
It
also poses
a
serious
challenge
to Western
statesmanship.
Washington,
London
and
Paris
have
already
been
forced
to
face up
to
this
new
situation
and
are,
in
different
ways,
radically
revising
their
outlooks
on
Africa.
Policy-
makers
in
Ottawa
too
are
beginning to
ponder
the
implications
of
this
convulsion
for
Canada.
In
this,
they
have
been
spurred
on
by
Mr.
Howard
Green
who,
following
his appointment
as
Minister
of
External
Affairs, wasted
no
time
in
"discovering"
Africa.
The
early
encouragement
he
gave
to
African
affairs
was
one
of
the
more significant
ways
in
which
he
made
his
influence
felt
on
departmental
policy.
However,
following
his
tour
of
Latin
America
earlier
in
the
year,
his
enthusiasm appears
to
have
been
transferred
to
the
countries
south
of
the
Rio
Grande.
Certainly,
nothing
remotely
resembling
an adequate
and
coherent
Canadian
policy
towards
Africa
has
yet
emerged.
Some
slight
progress
has.
been
made,
but,
such
is
the
revolutionary
pace
of
development
in
Africa,
that
"it
takes
all
the
running
you
can
do",
as
the
Red
Queen
explained,
"to
keep
in
the
same
place.
If you
want
to
get
somewhere
else,
you
must
run
at
least
twice
as
fast
as
that
!"
The
difficulty
is
not
simply
that
Canada
is
not
yet running
as
fast
as
she
might.
It
is
also
that
she
does
not
always
run
in
the
right
direction.
In
certain respects,
she
appears
increasingly
*
Department
of
Political
Science,
Carleton University.
TOWARDS
A
CANADIAN
POLICY
ON
AFRICA
291
out
of
step with
the
new
Africa.
Thus,
at
the
"African
session"
of
the
U.N.
General
Assembly
a
year
ago,
she
found
herself
in
opposition to
the
African
bloc
on
nearly
every
African
issue,
notably
Algeria,
the
Cameroons,
South-West Africa
and
apar-
theid.
The
only
important
exception
was
the
resolution
con-
cerning
French
nuclear
tests
in
the
Sahara;
and
even
this
was
more
a
case
of
opposing
the
French
rather
than
supporting
the
Africans.
(Ottawa
was
not
persuaded
that
Africans
were
jus-
tified
in
protesting the
use
of
their
continent
for this
purpose,
but
it
was
opposed
to
all
tests
on
principle.)
This
pattern
of
policy
is
disturbing.
On
each
individual
issue,
there
were
plaus-
ible,
if
not
always
convincing,
grounds
for
Canada's
stand.
More-
over,
no
one
would
suggest
that
the
Africans
were always
right
in
the
positions
they
adopted.
Nevertheless,
a
situation
in which
Canada
appears
to
be,
in
the
words
of
the
U.N.
correspondent
of
one
Nigerian
newspaper, "generally
unsympathetic
to
African
aspirations"
is
not
one
in
which
Canadians
should
readily
acquiesce.
Africa
is
not
a
continent
which
in
the
past
has
excited
the
interest
of
a
great
number
of
Canadians.
One
reason
for this
is
that,
in
contrast
to
the
United
States,
only
a
tiny
fraction
of
Canada's
population
is
African
in
ancestry
;1
and
her
immigration
laws
ensure
that
this
will
continue
to
be
the
case.
South
Afri-
cans,
regardless
of
race-at
least
in
theory-are
accepted
as
preferred immigrants
on
the
same
basis
as Britons
and
Ameri-
cans. The
only
other
nationals
to
receive
special
consideration
are
the
Egyptians
who
are
grouped
for
immigration
purposes
with
the
Latin
Americans
and
Eastern
Europeans.
All
other
Africans
are,
unless
they
have
close
relations
in
Canada,
auto-
matically
classed
as prohibited
immigrants.
Consequently,
of
over
five
thousand
persons
who
migrated
to
Canada
from
Africa
during
the
past
three
years,
only
nineteen
were
Arabs
and
twenty
Negro.
2
This
is
not
a serious
matter
at
the
moment,
as
1
Following
the
American
War
of
Independence,
some
1,200
loyal
Ameri-
can
Negroes,
who
had
been
somewhat
uncomfortably
settled in
Nova
Scotia,
were
"repatriated"
to
Sierra
Leone.
Their
descendents
there
are
still
known
as
"Nova
Scotians",
a
local
equivalent
of
United
Empire
Loyalist.
2
During
the
same
period
(1957-59),
1,320
Arabs
and
2,404
Negroes
were
admitted to
Canada as
permanent
residents from
all
parts
of
the
world.
To continue reading
Request your trial