Editorial | Canada, Caribbean must rediscover each other

Hardly anyone in Jamaica seems to have noticed, much less paid attention to, Monday’s general election in Canada in which Justin Trudeau’s Liberals clung to power, although with a minority government. They got 157 of the 338 parliamentary seats, against 184 in 2015.

Mr Trudeau, no doubt, will be busy for a while, attempting to craft a confidence-and-supply deal with the left-of-centre New Democratic Party (NDP), with its 24 parliamentary seats, or, perhaps, Bloc Québécois, the nominally separatist provincial party that has 32 seats. His attention, at least for now, is unlikely to be on foreign-policy issues, especially if they don’t include the global powers, in particular, his powerful neighbour to the south, the United States.

Hopefully, though, someone in Jamaica’s foreign ministry remembered not that the Canadians were voting but gave thought of how to rejuvenate Canada-Caribbean relations, with Jamaica at its centre. Ironically, the timing may be right for such a re-engagement.

It isn’t that Canada doesn’t enjoy good relations with this region, especially the English-speaking states that form the core of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM). That relationship goes back more than two centuries since the British West Indian colonies began importing fish and other products from the maritime provinces after the American war of independence.

Canadian banks, some of which still have a presence in the Caribbean, provided financial services to the region. During, and after, the ill-fated West Indies Federation, Canada’s Tory and Liberal governments were generous with their economic aid to the region. In the mid-1980s, Canada, during Brian Mulroney’s premiership, agreed to a non-reciprocal free-trade agreement with the Caribbean.

With regard to Jamaica, in the 1970s, when Michael Manley’s government faced demands from the International Monetary Fund for harsh austerity measures in exchange for loans, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, Justin Trudeau’s father, interceded to help ease the strictures. And while Mr Manley’s People’s National Party had fraternal relations with the NDP, Mr Trudeau’s was a strong voice of support for the Jamaican leader’s advocacy for a better economic deal for developing countries.

Canada, particularly under the Liberals, remains supportive of the region, especially with assistance to pursue the United Nation’s Sustainable Development goals. Yet, this newspaper has a sense that its relations, both with Jamaica and the wider region, have gone more than a bit flat. And that is beyond weakened bilateral trade and declined Canadian investment in the region. There is, it seems to us, an absence of clear focus, geopolitical or otherwise, to the relationship. It, at best, appears to be meandering.

The rise of China, and its heavy economic investments in Jamaica and the wider region, has probably paid a not insignificant part in lessening focus on traditional partners like Canada, whose firms, especially those in the mineral sector that used to be important players in the region, are no longer the global forces they once were.

SUCK GLOBAL OXYGEN

Further, the advance of Donald Trump as America’s president, with his impulsive, and disruptive, domestic and foreign policies, has helped to suck global oxygen from almost everything else.

Donald Trump is one important reason why Canada and the Caribbean should rediscover each other. For this region, there are shared interests with Canada, not the least being Mr Trudeau’s declared commitment, despite pressures from western Canada, where his party’s support collapsed, to fighting climate change and global warming, which represent existential threats to the Caribbean. Indeed, environmental issues are also important to the NDP, to which Mr Trudeau will look for legislative support.

For small, weak countries such as the members of CARICOM, a multilateral, rules-based global order, rather than one in which the most powerful arbitrarily exercise power, as Mr Trump is wont to do, is important. Indeed, even a relatively strong G-7 member like Canada can be subject to the whim of those who are stronger, as was the case when the US president imposed tariffs on Canadian aluminium and threatened to do the same with motor vehicles.

CARICOM and Canada share membership in the Commonwealth, where such interests are also likely to align. The community also has 15 votes at other international fora, including the World Trade Organization, whose reform, rather than Mr Trump’s preferred demolition, the Canadians, have, with others, been working at.