Officials in 1917 and 1919 deliberated a Canadian proposal that the entirety of the British West Indies be transferred to Canada…
James Bowden, “Ambivalent Empire”, Dorchester Review, Autumn/Winter 2018
For many people in the Caribbean, what sets Canada apart from many of the other countries who are engaged there is the fact that Canada has never had an international empire. Canada, it is said, is free from the heavy-handed, slavery-based, colonizing impulse that has left such a mark in the Caribbean. Canada simply has less historical baggage than others.
While the outcome of Canada’s historical development supports this idea, when looking at the record more deeply, it emerges that there have been occasions when at least some in Canada supported a more direct governance role for the country in the Caribbean.
James Bowden, is a Canadian scholar specializing in Westminister parliamentarism, political institutions, especially the Crown, political executive, and conventions of Responsible Government. Mr. Bowden has written a short paper that looks at discussions that took place around the end of World War 1 that might have resulted in a different Canada-Caribbean relationship. He writes…”These efforts culminated between 1917 and 1919 when Sir Robert Borden, [the Canadian Prime Minister] and David Lloyd George, the British prime minister, deliberated a Canadian proposal that the entirety of the British West Indies be transferred to Canada.”
Read the full paper below.
Other efforts to involve Canada in Caribbean governance emerged in the 1950’s in the context of the attempts to create the West Indies Federation. And more recently, individuals have proposed political association between Canada and Turks and Caicos Islands.
For more of James Bowden’s work see James Bowden’s Blog | A blog (primarily) on Canadian and Commonwealth political history and institutions (parliamentum.org)