‘Canada in Africa: 300 Years of Aid and Exploitation’: A review

Yves Engler’s latest book, which is entitled ‘Canada in Africa: 300 Years of Aid and Exploitation’, comprehensively details Canada’s role in exploiting Africa. Engler begins Chapter One by deconstructing the widespread myth that Canada’s only association with African slavery was as a sympathetic country at the end of the Underground Railroad that received escaping American slaves as free people. According to Engler, for over 200 years, New France and the British North America colonies held Africans in bondage.

Although Engler concedes that Canada played a small part in the transatlantic slave trade, he is of the view that it is vital that Canadians confront their history in its totality. Part of that history teaches that Canada benefited and actively took part in a global economic system that maimed, tortured and killed millions of Africans. The same system sowed political instability and underdevelopment in much of Africa while spurring commerce and generating wealth in Canada.

Engler provides evidence to show how, from Kenya to the Congo, Canadians helped conquer Africa. For instance, he illustrates that apart from playing a significant role in the Christian missionary movement, hundreds of Canadians travelled to Africa to beat back anti-colonial resistance in the Sudan, while thousands more fought in defence of British imperial interests in the southern part of the continent.

Moreover, contrary to the metanarrative about Canada’s supposed long-standing liberal relations with Africa, Canada was opposed to Africa’s decolonisation process in the 1950s and 1960s. According to Engler, Ottawa opposed many anticolonial resolutions at the UN and instead called for African liberation movements to be “patient”. Canadian officials condemned liberation movements for engaging in armed struggle, while at the same time delivering weaponry to the colonial powers.

To further reverse whatever gains post-colonial Africa won through the decolonisation process, Canada’s aid agencies such as the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), aligned their policies with the IMF and the World Bank, “making aid conditional on the implementation of far-reaching changes known as Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs)” (p. 128). The claim that structural adjustment was an assault on living standards that produced deep and enduring social and economic crises across the continent is well documented. Engler writes that for many African countries, the structural adjustment period was worse than the Great Depression.

The book’s invaluable contribution to the field lies in the depth and breadth of the history it recounts. For example, Engler masterfully lays out the ways in which Canada participated in the exploitation of Africa during slavery, through colonialism, via Canadian mining companies that operated in Africa and later through aid and Structural Adjustment Programs, and through implementing global neoliberal policies.

According to Engler, Canadian mining companies have extracted and continue to extract resources in Africa in ways that would not be allowed in Canada. He (p. 151) quotes Clive Newall - the president of one of Canada’s top mining companies - who said in a 2008 interview that, “we wouldn’t want to be in the U.S., for example, because the permitting requirements are so severe. It takes 10 to 20 years to take a mine into production. We just don’t operate like that.”

Additionally, Canadian mining companies operating in Africa often engage in tax avoidance and/or tax evasion. Contrary to popular belief that African economies are financially unsustainable due to corrupt African politicians, Africa loses much more from corporate tax evasion. Engler quotes a study by the Global Financial Integrity Forum which found that between 1970 and 2008, total illicit financial outflows from Africa were approximately $854 billion. According to Engler (p. 256),

“Three percent of this total was thought to be bribes to government officials or theft of public funds. Fifteen percent of all illicit outbound transfers were found to be money derived from drug smuggling, counterfeit goods, racketeering and other common criminal activities. The vast majority of the illicit funds, up to two thirds of the total, were cross-border commercial transactions designed to reduce or eliminate taxes. Most of this money consisted of corporations shifting goods and profits between jurisdictions to reduce or eliminate their tax bill.”

The Mail & Guardian, a South African weekly newspaper, recently reported that more money has left Africa illegally in the past 50 years than the continent has received. The newspaper identified private companies as the main culprits. Through tax evasion, tax avoidance, profit-shifting and practices such as trade mis-invoicing or trade mispricing, corporations are moving billions of dollars a year out of Africa. According to the Mail & Guardian report, Africa would no longer need development aid if multi-national companies paid their share of taxes in their host countries.

According to Sol Picciotto, taxation is key to the character and functioning of the state, the economy and society as a whole. Tax evasion and tax avoidance schemes that are encouraged and facilitated by the global offshore financial system undermine the national sovereignty of African states. Engler (p. 257) points out that “Canada has helped build the global offshore financial system.”

Ultimately, Engler’s book provides compelling evidence to illustrate Charles Mills’ claim that “white supremacy is the unnamed political system that has made the modern world what it is today.” Canada participated in and thus benefited from the slavery of Africans and the colonialism of Africa. Canada continues to benefit from the neoliberal global economy that largely serves the economic interests of Western nations.

* Mandisi Majavu is the Book Reviews Editor of Interface: A Journal For and About Social Movements.

* THE VIEWS OF THE ABOVE ARTICLE ARE THOSE OF THE AUTHOR AND DO NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT THE VIEWS OF THE PAMBAZUKA NEWS EDITORIAL TEAM

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