February 25, 2023 Canada’s relationship with the Caribbean came into sharp focus at the recently held Canada-Caribbean Institute Symposium (CCIS), hosted by The UWI Cave Hill campus.
The February 23-24 event was held at the Sagicor Cave Hill School of Business and Management under the theme ‘Decoloniality: Past, Present and Future Directions’.
Vice-Chancellor of The UWI, Professor Sir Hilary Beckles said the second CCIS was timely, given Ottawa’s unique position within the discourse about colonialism and modernity, and Barbados’ recent decision to transition to a republic by replacing the British monarch with a president as its head of state.
“Canada is the only significant industrial nation in the north Atlantic that did not send armies out into the world to conquer people,” Beckles stated.
“(However) there was a conquering domestically of the indigenous people; there was also the enslavement of African people in Canada. So while on the one hand it was not an imperial nation with its own domestic development, it was a critical part of the rise of that Atlantic system of capitalism, slavery and indigenous conquer, which creates an interesting tension for academics to interrogate,” he added.
UWI Press Release
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