In committee, Canadian parliamentarians and bureaucrats expose colonial attitude towards Africa
Conservative Party MP Ziad Aboultaif speaks during the April 29 meeting of the Canadian parliament’s foreign affairs standing committee.
Written by: Aidan Jonah
As the NATO colonial enterprise continues crumbling and the anxiety of Canadian political elites grows, comes a rapidly increasing bluntness. As African countries lean towards Russia and China over the colonial West, anxiety about a lack of Canadian influence has skyrocketed. To see this, look no further than the Canadian parliament’s foreign affairs standing committee meetings in April (April 10, 15, 17, 29),
Anxiety of the parliamentarians
The colonial show began with Conservative Party MP Ziad Aboultaif. Aboultaif asked Canadian government officials how Canada is or could be countering China and Russia “to be able to do the business [‘from development to an economic and business approach] that we need to do with Africa”. Aboultaif also claimed that “China has invaded most of Africa without having to fire a single bullet.” Aboultaif would also admit that China “is more economically desirable to do business with in the region.” But instead of seriously reflecting about this reality, Aboultaif instead asks how Canada will keep “our market share [in Africa] at all levels?”
Conservative MP Ed Fast would call Barrick Gold “a good Canadian mining company”. Such a ‘great’ company, that definitely doesn’t have negative impacts in countries its mines are based in.
Conservative MP Dave Epp proceeded to reveal the humiliation of Canadian mining companies, by admitting that Canadian mining companies in Mali are paying $10 million per month for security to the Wagner Group, a Russian private military contractor. Canada’s colonial mining companies are helping fund Wagner Group, as it, on the invitation of African governments, fights the terrorism in Africa which the West only pretended to fight for many years. Epp proceeded to ask how Canada could try to “redirect some of those Canadian assets producing royalties in a foreign country” away from the Wagner Group; a question that presumes Canada has any ability to impose its will upon Mali’s military government.
Cheryl Urban, Assistant Deputy Minister from Canada’s foreign affairs department, said that Canada works with ECOWAS and the African Union “to help support African solutions to security in African countries”. If this was genuinely the case, then Canada would oppose the imposition of the United States Africa Command (AFRICOM) upon Africa since 2007, which was forced onto the continent by the US, after which the rate of terrorist attacks in Africa actually increased. If this was the case, Canada wouldn’t have had a Canadian general leading the NATO bombing campaign which destroyed Libya in 2011, then the most prosperous country in Africa, while even a Canadian Air Force pilot admitted the NATO mission was acting as “Al-Qaeda’s Air Force”. ECOWAS’ ‘contributions’ to ‘African security’ included mulling an invasion of Niger to re-impose the Western puppet government overthrown in a 2023 military coup.
With this in mind, Canada doesn’t actually care about “African solutions to security in African countries”, it is just angry that a Russian PMC is proving effective in fighting terrorism in the region, and having a strong presence in Mali, where Canadian companies choose it to provide security. Walter Dorn, a ‘Full Professor’ at the Royal Military College of Canada, said (16:35:00-16:35:15) “we really have to work with allies to push back against the Wagner Group, the fight is not just in Ukraine, it’s in Africa too”. This mentality would explain Dorn’s determination to push more UN peacekeeping missions on Africa. In his mind citizens of African nations must truly be desperate to experience the safe conduct of Canadian peacekeepers in Africa, such as – in the 1960s - getting Congolese leader Patrice Lumumba killed and working with Lumumba’s opposition, and - in the 1990s - torturing and/or murdering Somali citizens. Alessandro Arduino, Affiliate Lecturer at the Lau China Institute, was right for the wrong reason when he said (15:55:10-15:55:30) “action from quasi-PMC like Wagner Group aim to undermine Western-led counter terrorism effort which Canada has actively supported.” He was right that this so-called effort was being undermined, but wrong because this ‘counter terrorism’ effort was never meant to genuinely fight terrorism, which Wagner Group has done.
Epp also wants “more development dollars and more of our programming to flow through our Canadian-based CSOs and NGOs to partner organizations for two reasons: efficiency reasons… and… also less risk of corruption when it goes government to government down in the channels there”. In Epp’s mind, Canada should take the money away from those ‘untrustworthy’ African governments and let the definitely not corrupt West have its NGO army step over governments in Africa.
MP Damien Kurek asked Marcel Lebleu, the Director General of the West and Central Africa bureau, what work Canada is doing “to help bring democracy to a country that is desperate for it?” Bloc Quebecois MP Yves Perron said the committee was “looking at how we can help play a role in the region to try to encourage the potential return of democracy”, in some African countries. Furthermore, Perron said on Senegal:
“Wouldn't we have a role to play in encouraging this government to move in the right direction and perhaps maintain good relations with the west?”
But Canada has no business speaking about democracy, given its history in Africa and the rest of the world. The title of Yves Engler and Owen Schalk’s new book, a “sweeping overview of Canadian backed coups since 1950”, speaks for itself: “Canada's Long Fight Against Democracy”.
Lebleu spoke later about how the governments of “Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger” are “undemocratic countries”. The governments which came before were Western puppet governments. In the case of Mali, Royal Military College of Canada professor, Walter Dorn, outright claimed (16:34:45-16:35:00) that until Wagner Group came in this decade, “Mali was an example of democracy for so many decades, it was what African countries could look up to”. The ‘great democracy’ of Mali featured intimidation, vote buying and allegations of vote rigging, in the 2020 election, vote fraud allegations and security fears in 2018, vote fraud allegations in 2013, all just in the last decade before the last military coup and the Wagner Group coming in – it was no democracy. Dorn immediately followed this up by saying (16:35:00-16:35:15) that since “Wagner Group has gotten such a solidified presence, we really have to work with allies to push back against the Wagner Group, the fight is not just in Ukraine, it’s in Africa too”. Canada’s concern about “democracy” in these countries came when they became governed by people who wouldn’t be servants of the West.
Canada prefers its Western puppets, because as Urban revealed, these African leaders “are very concerned about the [Russian] disinformation” that happens in their nations “which can sometimes lead to anti-western sentiment”. Nothing to do with the vicious actions of Canadian mining companies or Canada’s support for coups against non-Western puppets governments, it’s just the evil Russians who make citizens of African countries oppose the West’s interference in their countries, according to Urban and these leaders.
Bloc Quebecois MP Stephane Bergeron also had eye-catching contributions to the committee meeting. In an Africa focused meeting, Bergeron worried about “a continuing decline in the navy’s readiness”, where half of its “fleet elements” couldn’t be used in “support of simultaneous operation”. Bergeron followed up by asking why “Canada decided not to participate in Operation Projection” and if Canada’s navy would be “participating in Excercise Obangame Express”.
According to Bergeron, all is good for the future of the French language in Africa, where he says “French is the language expected to experience the strongest growth over the next fifty years”. According to whom exactly? It is not said.
Meanwhile, there is a slowly growing pattern of African countries which suffered from French colonialism, which had French as an official language, despite ongoing French neo-colonialism in Africa. Countries that have already abandoned the language’s current capacity, include Algeria, Tunisia, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger.
Through the meetings, some non-bureaucrat guests were just as delusional. Only David Black, a Dalhousie University professor, acknowledged the reality that for African countries, there is a “sense of anti-colonial push-back” and “deep sense of disaffection with the world as it has been constituted” and liberal democracy to “some degree”. Other guests poked at genuine problems citizens of African nations face, but only to a limited degree, without any criticism of Canadian imperialism.
Christopher Roberts of Canadian Global Affairs Institute said that “most African states are also dependent on—and most African citizens are desirous of—both international and domestic orders governed by the rule of law”. The West’s chop and change ‘rule of law’ that allows it to justify neo-colonialism and support for genocide is supposedly desired by African nations over international law, in Roberts’ mind.
Nola Kianza, President and CEO of the Canadian Council of Africa said that when citizens of African nations “look at Canada, they look at the business ethics. They look at Canadians' values. They look at expertise. They look at know-how. They look at our technology. We have done this before. What is agriculture? What is telecommunications? What is infrastructure? We have done these things.” Kianza’s colonial attitude is blatant beyond words, thinking we should apparently be glad that the Canadians were there to teach the Africans about agriculture, telecommunications and infrastructure. What would they do without the heroic Westerners?
China and Russia offer infrastructure, security support - Canada offers ‘democracy’
Amid the decades of Canadian mining companies plundering resources in African nations, Canada’s backing of African dictatorships such as Rwanda, and its historical role in subverting the fight for genuine democracy in African nations, it is little wonder that Canada lacks standing and love from African countries.
On the other side, Russia is engaging in military cooperation with the new governments of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, while China’s Belt and Road Initiative has facilitated significant investment in infrastructure in African countries, and trade between China and African nations. The Wagner Group has assisted the fight against terrorism in Africa. Now under the name of Africa Corps for Africa operations, they continue their role in the fight against US and French sponsored terrorism.
In 2024, all Canada can offer African nations is unwanted advice about how to have ‘democracy’, and the plundering of their resources by Canadian mining companies. What a hard choice it has been for Africans to make: colonialism or development and security.
Editor’s note: The Canada Files is the country's only news outlet focused on Canadian foreign policy. We've provided critical investigations & hard-hitting analysis on Canadian foreign policy since 2019, and need your support.
Please consider joining 85 consistent financial supporters, in setting up a monthly or annual donation through Donorbox.
Aidan Jonah is the Editor-in-Chief of The Canada Files, a socialist, anti-imperialist news outlet founded in 2019. Jonah wrote a report for the 48th session of the UN Human Rights Council, held in September 2021.
More Articles
