4. Canadian Colonialism

 

“Local territorial agents of colonial states exercised essentially unrestricted arbitrary authority over their African subjects, circumscribed only by their practical capacity to enforce it.”

– Crawford Young, The African Colonial State in Comparative Perspective1

 

Throughout various stages of the colonial project, Canada provided political, military, economic and moral support. Though little known, hundreds of Canadians even engaged in the task of administering the British colonies.

Leading British colonial historian Anthony Kirk-Greene points out “at the top of the Dominions dimension stands Canada’s contribution to the prestigious post of the governorship of major African territories.”2 Between 1907 and 1929, a trio of Canadians held this top position.3

Percy Girouard’s efficiency in the Sudan and South Africa impressed Winston Churchill. Then serving as British under-secretary of state, Churchill promoted the Canadian rail expert to high commissioner of Northern Nigeria in 1906.4 Two years later Girouard became governor of the colony, sparking a Toronto Globe headline that read: “Northern Nigeria: the country which a Canadian will rule”.5

Girouard enjoyed lording over a territory he described as “perhaps the most interesting of all the developing colonies — 400,000 square miles with a population of 10 to 20 million.”6 In a letter to his father in Montréal, he wrote, “there is no other part of the empire I would sooner be in and excepting the hold of the Secretary of State, I am a little independent king.”7 Girouard’s ascent to “king” of Northern Nigeria was the fruit of his railway building successes in the Sudan and South Africa.

In their struggle against resistance from various tribes, the British empire needed a rail line to strengthen its grip over the interior of the colony. In a 177-page Masters thesis titled Sir Percy Girouard: French Canadian proconsul in Africa, 1906-1912, Michael Smith writes that the British government “had become fully aware of the fragile military situation in the Protectorate and was now convinced that a railroad was necessary to ensure security in the region.”8

In addition to its military considerations, Britain needed a railway line to the coast to access “a cheap, reliable source of raw cotton” in service of the textile industry in northern England.9 An article titled “Sir Percy Girouard, Canada’s Governor of Northern Nigeria, 1907-1909” notes, “the British handed the Northern Nigeria governorship over to our man from Canada, Percy Girouard in order to literally lay the groundwork for a natural resource export economy, and it worked.”10

The 550-km railway stretching from the city of Kano to the port of Baro increased raw cotton exports considerably. British capitalists, however, determined prices in ways that limited benefits to Nigerians.11 The rail line also increased imports of European manufactured fabrics, undermining the traditional cloth industry.

Constructing the Baro-Kano railway was a considerable challenge and Girouard needed help. He hired Canadian mechanical engineer A.W. Robinson, and two Canadian axmen, Jules Lachapelle and A. S. Choun.12 While Canadians received clear contracts, many African labourers were forced to work. One author contrasted the Canadian governor’s pay with that of the Nigerian rail workers — Girouard earned 800 times as much as the local labourers were paid — if they were paid at all.13 In Working on the Railway: Forced Labor in Northern Nigeria, 1907-1912 Michael Mason explains, “by 1907 [the British] had begun to drive local peasants and slaves to build a river port at Baro on the Niger and a railway line to link that town to the economic heart of the Protectorate, Kano.”14 Mason adds “workers on the railway line were to be pressed into service by political means, that is, through the combined intervention of the European officials and the indigenous chiefs.”15

Forced labour practices led to a major uprising against at least one of the chief’s responsible for recruiting rail workers at Britain’s behest. During the course of two battles, as many as 200 villagers were killed by colonial forces suppressing this opposition.16 An internal British communiqué described this conflict, stating: “This resistance [to the chief] increased, owing apparently to orders being issued for the Gussoro people to build some canoes for placing at the various rivers where the railway would cross, and the hostile faction increased in the early part of this year when Gussoro was called on to supply labour for earthworks [moving or processing parts of the earth].”17

Girouard explained the colonial administration’s employment of pre-colonial authority as follows: “If we allow the tribal authority to be ignored or broken, it will mean that we … shall be obliged to deal with a rabble, with thousands of persons in a savage or semi-savage state, all acting on their own impulses and making themselves a danger to society generally.”18

After completing his duties in Northern Nigeria, Girouard became governor of British East Africa (present day Kenya). From 1909 to 1912 Girouard threw himself into ongoing efforts to turn Kenya into a “white man’s country”.19

Girouard’s unchecked colonial zeal made him a liability, eventually prompting the Colonial Office to relieve him of his duties. In Moving the Maasai: A Colonial Misadventure Lotte Hughes writes that Girouard “alarmed London by being unashamedly pro-settler.”20 Another scholar writes that the governor “doubted the wisdom of emphasizing African [export] production and increasingly placed the colonial state behind the productive efforts of Kenya’s European settlers.”21

Girouard championed the vision of Kenya as a white man’s country. He pushed to remove London-appointed officials at odds with white settlers and argued for parity between local whites and government officials on the Protectorate’s Legislative Council.22 Turning history on its head, Girouard declared Kikuyu settlements on white farms “nothing but nests of thieves.”23

On multiple occasions, Girouard went as far as defying the Colonial Office on important settlement related issues. When a prominent British settler confessed to the murder of an African suspected of stealing a sheep, a white jury rejected the judge’s counsel and acquitted the killer after five minutes of deliberation.24 London wanted the assailant deported, fearing political fallout in the UK from the judicial farce. Girourd not only refused to condemn the murder and the jury’s decision, he attempted to block the deportation.25 In an internal telegram, the Colonial Office’s H. J. Read wrote: “In spite of Sir P. Girouard’s apologetics it seems to me that murder is murder and that it is out of the question to let the matter slide in the easy manner which he appears to contemplate.”26

Girouard’s indifference to this crime caused a rift with London, but it was his underhanded abrogation of the sole treaty the East African protectorate had ever signed with an African tribe that spurred his political demise.27 Weakened by disease and confronting an ascendant Britain, in 1904 the Maasai agreed to give up as much as two thirds of their land.28 In exchange, the cattle rearing, semi-nomadic people were assured the fertile Laikipia Plateau for “so long as the Maasai as a race shall exist.”29 By Girouard and Britain’s odd calculation, the agreement expired seven years later. About 10,000 Maasai, with 200,000 cattle and 2 million sheep, were forced to march 150 km southward to a semiarid area near German East Africa.30 An unknown number of Maasai and their livestock died on this “trail of tears”.

In Origins of European Settlement in Kenya, M. P. K. Sorensen describes the Canadian’s effort to sell London on scrapping the agreement. “Girouard had to abrogate the 1904 Masai treaty and pretend to the Colonial Office that the Masai wanted to move south. At the same time he had to disguise the fact that he was acting in the interests of the settlers, some of whom had been promised land on Laikipia.”31

Concerned about the impact of Girouard’s actions, some British officials in the protectorate bypassed the governor to communicate their disagreement to London. One official in East Africa cabled the Colonial Office with a message: “Girouard was simply yielding to settler pressure in his wish to move the Maasai.”32

Girouard’s deception and abrogation of the treaty caused tensions within the Colonial Office, which would be his downfall. His actions also led to court battles. In 1913 the Maasai sued to recover the land they lost two years earlier and a century later there is still talk of reviving the case.33

But European settlers weren’t satisfied with taking good East African land. They also wanted cheap labour. To assist the white community’s search for African labour, Girouard put forth a number of proposals strongly influenced by racist South African policy.34 Sorensen explains: “He decided that South Africa provided more suitable precedents than West Africa, since the presence of white settlers in the highlands made the protectorate’s racial problems similar to those of South Africa. Girouard intended to follow the recommendations of the South African Native Affairs Commission Report of 1905. This envisioned four stages of African evolution towards civilisation: at first Africans lived in a tribal society in reserves; then they laboured for European farmers; next they obtained urban employment; and, finally, they moved into professional occupations.”35

As in Northern Nigeria, the Canadian governor allowed the practice of using compulsory labour on some public and private projects. One chief explained how he supplied 50 workmen for the Girouard-promoted Magady Soda Works project by “sending out his spearman and asking for volunteers.”36

In an article titled “Canada in Africa: Sir Percy Girouard, Neglected Colonial Governor”, Oxford historian Anthony Kirk-Greene dubs him “Canada’s most distinguished yet least-known colonial governor.”37 Sympathetic to imperialism, the author further explains: “In the whole of the 20th century and in all Britain’s African territories put together, there is not another governor who was knighted when he was just turned 30 or who could point to outstanding service in North and South, West and East Africa.”38

The son of a long serving Member of Parliament and Supreme Court of Canada judge, Girouard remained honorary lieutenant colonel of the Chicoutimi-based 18th (Saguenay) regiment throughout his time in Africa. In 1903, Montréal Herald readers ranked Girouard seventh among “the ten greatest living Canadians.”39 The next year Banff National Park named Mount Girouard in his honour.40 The RMC cited him as a distinguished graduate in a 1924 House of Commons debate and 53 years later created a Girouard Academic Building.41 More than half a century later the accolades continued to accumulate with the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada erecting a plaque in his honour at the RMC in 1985, the same year the Montréal Gazette published an article titled “Maybe Africa needs another Percy Girouard.”42

Canada had a foot on the ground on the west coast of Africa as well. While Girouard ruled the great landmasses of both Northern Nigeria and British East Africa, Galt Ontario born Sir Frederick Gordon Guggisberg governed for longer. In 1914, the brigadier general was appointed director of public works in the Gold Coast. In 1919, he became governor of the colony, a position he held until 1927.

Guggisberg is remembered as a pro-African governor. A 1998 biography is titled Beloved Imperialist: Sir Gordon Guggisberg, Governor of the Gold Coast while his Wikipedia page argues, “the aim of Guggisberg’s policy was the development of the country by and for the natives rather than for the benefit of European capitalists.”43 Paradoxically, Guggisberg’s highly sympathetic 1966 biography says he would be “shocked by the notion of ‘one man one vote’.”44 At another point the book notes, “Guggisberg was not a democrat, and the Gold Coast was not a democracy.”45

Guggisberg’s comparatively pro-African legacy speaks volumes about the authoritarian character of British colonialism. In one treatise published after leaving the governorship he writes, “it is clear, therefore, that trusteeship, as used in connection with the rule of a European over a backward race, involves the development of the latter’s country for the benefit of its indigenous inhabitants.”46 During his rule he wrote to a friend in the Colonial Office regarding a British Labour Party election victory. His 1966 biography summarized his concerns that the election “would lay waste the work of generations by greeting Africans prematurely as equal citizens in the Commonwealth and giving them the vote.”47 Guggisberg wrote, “we are safe as long as you keep the Labour party out of power.”48 The Canadian born governor took up the same theme regarding the Labour Party during a speech in northern England. According to A Political History of Ghana: “He expressed the fear in Manchester that someday the idealists might get a little power in England and would then turn round and say to the Gold Coast, ‘You are men, and brothers with us. Some of you are very finely educated. We will give you self-government and see how you can govern yourselves.’ If that moment were to come ‘within the next 100 years … Manchester merchants would be wise to cut their losses and start trade with some other part of the world’. ”49

Guggisberg also disliked labour unions. In 1920, the Colonial Office advised all colony administrations to treat workers organisations in accordance with the International Labour Convention of 1919. In response, Guggisberg cautioned the secretary of state to “do nothing to hasten the growth of unionism.”50 A strike the previous year at the Sekondi port lasted five weeks despite the colonial administration’s efforts to intimidate the workers. “By 1920-1 strike action had spread to Accra and the outstations,” notes Christian Tsey in Gold Coast Railways: the Making of a Colonial Economy, 1879-1929. “However, Guggisberg who at the time was still calling the workers’ demands ‘exorbitant’, was committed to a hard line.”51

Any wage increase is “exorbitant” when labour can be free. Guggisberg used forced labour for a number of public projects. At a conference of public works officials in November 1919 he announced that the colonial administration needed to recruit 27,000 labourers, half of whom Tsey explains, “were to be provided by the Ashanti through unpaid communal labour.”52 Forcing able-bodied peasants to provide several days of free labour on public projects predated the Canadian governor. It was, however, “the first time the system was being used for railway construction. The aim was to enable the Government to overcome the labour supply problem while placing the onus of recruitment on the Chiefs.”53 Guggisberg would boost the power of the chiefs, notes Tsey, so they could better “mobilize their subjects for forced communal labour.”54

The colonial administration’s push to widen its pool of free labour was driven by a desire to expand exports of what Guggisberg dubbed the colony’s “immensely valuable resources”.55As part of an effort to increase cocoa, timber and gold exports, Guggisberg pushed the construction of a huge new port.56 He asked the secretary of state for the colonies if he could “hire a Canadian engineering firm, Stewart and McDonnell, to survey the Gold Coast’s shoreline, propose possible harbour sites, and craft a plan for its construction.”57

But building a port at Takoradi Harbour near Accra became mired in controversy. The African members of the colony’s Legislative Council preferred to spend any money available for the port on schools and railways.58 Additionally, those displaced from their homes to make room for European settlement, which was to accompany the port, were unhappy.59 One of the most expensive projects the Colonial Office undertook anywhere during the 1920s, construction costs far surpassed the budget and one official at the Colonial Office accused Guggisberg of “irresponsibly endorsing the ousted engineers,” who were replaced by a British firm.60

Guggisberg’s biggest impact was in the official political arena where he engaged in a mix of divide and rule and co-opting critical forces to maintain overwhelming British control. He undercut growing nationalist sentiment by pitting formally educated, mostly urban, Africans against traditional chiefs. Guggisberg convinced a major chief, Nana Sir Ofori Atta, to criticize a West African National Congress delegation that traveled to England to push for greater political rights and then used the chief’s statement to lobby Secretary of State for the Colonies Alfred Milner to ensure the Congress delegation was not received by either him or the King.61

But the 1925 “Guggisberg Constitution” couldn’t completely dismiss the growing nationalist movement, which the governor denounced for “widening day by day and month by month the gap between the black man and the white man; they were increasing and creating this racial feeling.”62 In The Gold Coast Revolution George Padmore explains: “Recognizing that the [West African National] Congress could not be entirely disposed of, Sir Gordon Guggisberg evolved a plan to counter the Congress agitation by giving the Africans a larger voice in the Central Government. He side tracked Congress agitation by increasing the representation of the Colony chiefs in the Legislative Council. By making them salaried Native Authorities of the British Government, subject to official discipline under the District Commissioners, they could be depended upon to support official policies and rebut criticism from the educated Africans associated with the Congress and the Aborigines Rights Protection Society, then under the influence of a group of Cape Coast intellectuals.

“All this was achieved through the Native Authorities Ordinance and the Provincial Councils of Chiefs, which gave the chiefs the right to nominate themselves on to the Central Legislative Council. They were allowed twice the number of members granted to the educated Westernized Africans inhabiting the principal coastal towns. It was a clever move, which served the aims of the imperialists by divorcing the chiefs from the intelligentsia and driving a wedge between the educated urban and illiterate rural communities. This manoeuvre of Sir Gordon Guggisberg blunted the political agitation of the West African National Congress for radical constitutional changes, and had the effect of arresting for many years the onward march towards self-government.”63

A few months after leaving his post as Gold Coast governor, Guggisberg spoke to an audience at the Canadian Military Institute in Toronto. His 1966 biography notes, “one question which caused a ripple of laughter was whether Canada had any exports to West Africa other than engineers, officers and governors.”64

While only Guggisberg and Girouard achieved governorship, other Canadians assumed various lesser colonial positions. After a stint with the West African Frontier Force, RMC-graduate Arthur Leith-Ross became chief transport officer in the Nigeria Protectorate.65 He was not the only Canadian military man to enter colonial service. Former Royal Canadian Air Force pilot John C. Cairns spent six years in the colonial administration, rising to become a district officer in Tanganyika (Tanzania). In 1921 former Canadian Lieutenant E.F.L. Penno was appointed assistant commander of the Gold Coast police and was later made overall commander.66 After two decades with the British military, RMC graduate Sir Godfrey Rhodes relocated to become chief engineer and general manager of Kenya and Uganda Railways and Harbours in 1928.67 The Victoria native would remain in the position for over a decade and in 1939 received an appointment as chief commissioner of scouts in Kenya.68

Canadians were assigned a broad array of roles, from a veterinary officer in the Ado-Ekiti Division in southwest Nigeria to work in the agricultural department in Mauritius.69 Also dispatched to Nigeria, Dr. Beatty Rose oversaw its health department. Rose was the first Canadian posted under the Dominion Selection Scheme.70

A.H.M. Kirk-Greene describes the creation of a formal structure to recruit Canadian university graduates into the colonial administration in an article titled “Taking Canada into Partnership in ‘The White Man’s Burden’: The British Colonial Service and the Dominion Selection Scheme.” As part of the formation of the Dominion Selection Scheme, a 1923 Conference of Canadian Universities held a session on “British Colonial Service as a Career for Canadian University Graduates.”71 With Ottawa’s backing, the universities established procedures to recruit students and communicate with the Colonial Office about prospective candidates. In the late 1940s, for instance, the Provost of Trinity College at the University of Toronto, Professor R.S.K Seely, also acted as the Colonial Office’s recruiting representative for eastern Canada.72 The recruitment scheme would last nearly 40 years.73

In one memorandum, Major Ralph Furse, chief recruitment officer for the Colonial Service, framed the process of instituting the scheme as valuable to Canada, arguing that it would help the country learn “the problems of administration of native countries.”74 More crudely, the Colonial Office’s Parliamentary Under Secretary of State Leo Amery ended a letter to the principal of McGill University, Sir Arthur Currie, by noting that he looked forward “to the result of this modest little experiment in taking Canada into partnership in ‘The White Man’s Burden.’”75

In a 1926 report to the Imperial Conference, Amery announced that a “small but steady stream of very satisfactory young candidates from Canada … have entered the West and East African and other Colonial Services.”76 Between 1923 and 1955 at least 169 Canadians joined the colonial administration through the scheme.77 (According to On Crown Service, this figure underestimates the total, since “Canadians who graduated from British universities would have been recruited through the standard Colonial Office procedure.”78)

A number of Dominion Selection Scheme recruits went on to work in the Canadian foreign service. Ian Hodson was part of the Nyasalanda (Malawi) administration and was later responsible for Canadian External Aid Office programs in Africa.79 On the other side of the continent, Hugh Vernon-Jackson worked in northern Nigeria’s education department and later became a Canadian International Development Agency representative in Lagos with “repeat assignments to Addis Ababa, Khartoum and Cairo.”80 For his part, Walter Bazley was a colonial administrator in Bunyoro, Uganda, from 1950 to 1963 and after independence worked in the Canadian federal public service for three decades.81

Outside of colonial administrators, Canada threw its diplomatic weight behind European, mainly British, colonialism in Africa. As a Dominion without full control over its foreign policy until 1931, Canada ipso facto adhered to British colonialism. But Ottawa was not required to contribute to imperial endeavours and if Canadian policymakers disapproved of British policy they could have pushed for full autonomy decades earlier.

After 1931, Ottawa continued to follow a decidedly pro-colonial policy in Africa. In the lead-up to World War II, Italy invaded Abyssinia (Ethiopia), the only independent African country. (Ethiopians beat back an Italian invasion three decades earlier.) Employing mustard gas and other brutal tactics, the Italians killed tens of thousands of Ethiopians directly with many more dying as a result of dislocation.82 The 1935 invasion contravened a series of “friendship treaties” signed by the two countries. It also violated Article X of the League of Nations, which explicitly forbade aggression among the organization’s members. Nonetheless, Ottawa’s overall position opposed collective League action against Italy and ultimately recognized Italian sovereignty over Ethiopia.83

As the crisis unfolded, Ottawa undermined the push for oil sanctions against Italy. Acting Secretary of State for External Affairs Ernest Lapointe, explicitly distanced Canada from a sanctions proposal drafted by a Canadian member of the League’s Committee of 18.84 Clarifying his country’s position, Lapointe said: “The suggestion which has appeared from time to time, that the Canadian government has taken the initiative in the extension of the embargo upon exportation of key commodities to Italy, and particularly in the placing of a ban upon shipments of coal, oil, iron and steel, is due to a misunderstanding. The Canadian government has not and does not intend to take the initiative in any such action; and the opinion which was expressed by the Canadian member of the Committee — and which has led to the reference to the proposal as a Canadian proposal — represented only his own personal opinion, and his views as a member of the Committee — and not the views of the Canadian government.”85

Responding to the federal government’s refusal to support oil sanctions against Italy, Canadian Cooperative Federation (CCF) MP Tommy Douglas told the House of Commons: “Is it because those people who make their profits out of oil have a great deal more weight in the councils of the governments of the world than the dictates of humanity? The people of Canada are asking that we take a stand with the forces of peace rather than with those of financial interests desiring a greater sale of oil.”86

In his 1959 PhD thesis titled Some Reactions to Canadian Government Policy During the Italo Ethiopian Crisis, Leo Friman Kristjanson puts the diplomatic battle at the League of Nations into its broader context: “The black races throughout the world were of course hoping that the League would take strong action. This would represent a decision of the white man to aid the black against white domination and the League would then become one place in which they were treated as equals. There was of course some reaction of whites in the other direction. They recognized that a grievous wrong was being committed but thought it best to allow it to go on rather than have the black races demand equality.”87

In a clear indication of Ottawa’s orientation towards the “white races”, by the start of 1939 External Affairs had opened diplomatic missions in France, Belgium, US, Japan, Netherlands and the UK.88 These six countries ruled almost all of Africa and were among the most important colonial/imperial powers globally. Ottawa ignored dozens of independent countries in Latin America, Eastern Europe and Asia. Rather than establish missions in the colonial/imperial powers, Canada could have refused to open an embassy with any country that occupied another.

Alongside its effective diplomatic endorsement of African colonialism, Canada supported Britain militarily throughout the colonial period. Just after the Boer War Ottawa established formal ties between Canadian militia units and British regiments.89 The objective was to create opportunities for Canadian soldiers to fight alongside Britain, a goal that effectively meant securing the Empire.

Canada-British Air Force relations began during World War I and officer exchanges continued thereafter.90 Beginning in 1914 the Royal Naval College of Canada provided cadets with a “course of study that would qualify them for eventual service on British warships.”91 Close naval ties continued to build throughout much of the colonial period. In the Two-Edged Sword: The Navy as an Instrument of Canadian Foreign Policy, Nicholas Tracy points out that in the 1920s and 30s Canadian officers spent almost a third of their time in the Royal Navy and at any point 10% of the Canadian Navy’s ratings and warrant officers were on course or sea duty with the Royal Navy. British staff officers on the Canadian Naval staff, and the provision for Canadian Naval officers to fill staff positions at the Admiralty, ensured a unity of technical control.”92

Ottawa officially accepted the principle of military cooperation put forward by British politicians at the Imperial Conference of 1907.93 Present at the conferences were representatives from Britain, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand and Canada.

Canada wholeheartedly followed through on this commitment during World War I and II. As mentioned earlier, between 1914 and 1918 six hundred thousand Canadians fought in a war with no clear or compelling purpose other than rivalry between up-and-coming Germany and the imperial powers of the day, Britain and France.94 In fact, support for the British Empire was Ottawa’s primary motive in joining the war. As Prime Minister Robert Borden saw it, the fight was “to put forth every effort and to make every sacrifice necessary to ensure the integrity and maintain the honour of our empire.”95

Over one million Canadians fought in World War II. The historical record shows that Nazi expansionism’s threat to British interests, not opposition to fascism or anti-Semitism, led Ottawa to war. (Only two years before the war Prime Minister Mackenzie King visited Hitler and in his diary King repeatedly expressed sympathy towards the Nazis.96) Canada and the Two World Wars explains that “Canada went to war in September 1939 for the same reason as in 1914: because Britain went to war.”97

By land, sea and air Canadians fought in Africa during the Second World War. More than a dozen Royal Canadian Navy Corvettes escorted convoys from the UK to North Africa in 1942. Describing a larger follow-up support mission in 1943 a Hamilton Spectator headline noted: “Canada Supplied 29 Ships and 3000 of Her Sailors for North African Action”.98

Many Canadian fighter pilots also operated over the continent. “During the Second World War,” notes Canadian African studies scholar Douglas Anglin, “considerable numbers of Canadian airmen served in R.A.F. [Royal Air Force] squadrons in various parts of the continent, particularly North Africa.”99 More than a half-dozen Canadian pilots defended the important Royal Air Force base at Takoradi, Ghana, and others traveled there to follow the West African Reinforcement Route.100 As part of this effort thousands of fighter jets were assembled in Ghana and flown to Nigeria then to Sudan and onto Egypt to participate in the Middle East and North African theatre of the war.

Without Canada’s major contribution to the two World Wars Britain and France may not have held (let alone expanded) their African colonies. After Germany invaded during World War II part of the French government relocated to the south. The Vichy Regime continued to control France’s colonies. In a bid to prod Philippe Pétain’s Vichy regime to re-enter the war alongside the Allies, Canadian diplomat Pierre Dupuy visited on three occasions between 1940 and 1941.101 Describing Dupuy’s mission and the thinking in Ottawa at the time, Robin Gendron notes, “for the Canadian government as for the Allies in general, the colonies had no separate existence outside of France. In practical terms, the colonies were France.”102 Later in the war Prime Minister Mackenzie King expressed a similar opinion regarding Britain’s colonies. “In December 1942,” Gendron reports, “King informed the British Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs that colonial policy must remain the responsibility of the colonial powers, and he reiterated this position in late 1944 when the British government asked for Canada’s input on the latest proposals for the postwar settlement of colonial issues.”103

In a significant sign of support for colonialism, Ottawa enabled Canadian companies to profit from African subjugation. In 1893 the Department of Customs opened a Trade Return Category to calculate Canadian trade to “British possessions in Africa” and a few years later the French, Spanish and Portuguese colonies in Africa were added to the list.104 Canada’s first African Trade Office was opened in Cape Town in 1902 and by August 1904 James G. Jardine, the trade commissioner, reported that he visited “all the principal places from Cape Town to Zanzibar”, reaching halfway up the East African coast.105 As part of his bid to drum up business, Jardine met with politicians, journalists and business leaders from across the southern part of the continent.106

To spur African trade the Department of Trade and Commerce also subsidized a shipping line from Québec to Cape Town.107 The official history of the trade department, Canada’s Salesman to the World, notes “Canada extended the British preferential tariff to the [South African territories of] Cape of Good Hope, Natal, Orange River Colony, Transvaal, and Southern Rhodesia [Zimbabwe]. In 1910 Canada extended special treaty rates to all British colonies including those in Africa.”108

After fighting in the Boer War and commanding the Durban branch of the South African Constabulary, the aforementioned Henry Rivington Poussette was appointed Canadian trade commissioner in that city.109 His “jurisdiction extend[ed] from the Cape to the Zambesi, including Uganda, British East Africa [Kenya], Portuguese East Africa [Mozambique] and German Southwest Africa [Namibia].”110

Following Ottawa’s aggressive outreach, Canadian exports to British Africa rose sharply in the first two decades of the 1900s. They reached $15.5 million in 1921, which was only a million dollars less than trade to then independent Newfoundland.111

Canada’s participation in British imperialism spurred business at home. In a stark example of this dynamic, Canada’s Salesman to the World notes, “the Governor of the Gold Coast was a former Canadian and he suggested to the Canadian government to send someone to look into trade potential there.”112 Prior to taking up his governorship in what is now Ghana, Frederick Guggisberg met the Canadian trade commissioner in London. Afterwards he wrote the Colonial Office “that both Mister Lloyd Harris (the head of the mission) and I are convinced that we can open a large mutual trade direct between the Gold Coast and Canada.”113

In response to Guggisberg’s outreach, Canada’s trade commissioner in Cape Town, W. J. Egan, visited nine countries in West Africa over a 3½ month period in 1920-21. Egan’s report West Africa and its Opportunities for Canadian Trade was published in the department’s weekly bulletin and reprinted as an 80-page booklet.114 Egan makes it abundantly clear that the colonial apparatus facilitated his trip. “It is impossible to say too much in appreciation of the cooperation and up to date business methods shown by the Colonial Office in London, as regards the writer’s trip to the British colonies of West Africa. While in West Africa, every official was courteous itself; there was nothing asked for in the shape of information that was not supplied, or a suggestion made as to where it could be secured. The Commissioner enjoyed the hospitality of the Governor of each colony, and in every case Their Excellencies, with their Colonial Secretaries, helped enthusiastically in making a success of the visit. Thanks and appreciation are also do to the general managers of the railways in Sierra Leone, the Gold Coast, and Nigeria; the manager of the latter road, Mr. Bland, who is a Canadian, placed a special car at the writer’s disposal for his trip up to Kano, which is 700 miles inland.”115

Opportunities for Canadian business continued to expand. A few years after Egan’s trip the new Canadian trade commissioner in South Africa, G.R. Stevens, traveled to the Congo and reported on the Katanga region’s immense resources.116 In 1930 a trade office was opened in British-dominated Egypt. The commissioner there was also responsible for Sudan as well as parts of the Middle East.117

Without a permanent trade/investment generating outpost on the west of the continent, the assistant trade commissioner in London, H. Leslie Brown, built upon Egan’s earlier visit there. In 1938 he spent a week in Gambia, two weeks in Sierra Leone, three weeks in the Gold Coast and five weeks in Nigeria investigating opportunities for Canadian business. As part of the mission he published a series of reports in the department’s Commercial Intelligence Journal.118 According to the official history of the Trade Department, at the time of Brown’s West African tour, “the promotion of Canadian exports to colonial Africa was a secondary responsibility of three offices — Cairo, Johannesburg, and Cape Town. In addition, the offices in London, Liverpool, and Paris were involved because these cities housed the head offices or buying offices of the trading companies that controlled the bulk of the trade in West Africa.”119

In 1946 a trade commission was opened in the Belgian Congo and another in Rhodesia nine years later.120 During World War II the minister of trade and commerce gave preliminary approval to a trade agreement with the Congo that would have given the Belgian colony preferential tariff rates on par with those of the British Empire (London’s opposition ultimately scuttled the agreement).

Canadian investment in Africa was modest compared to those in the British Caribbean or US-dominated Latin America. But it continued to grow as the colonial era progressed. Direct Canadian investment in Africa reached $48 million in 1954 and $68 million in 1960 ($600 million today).121 For part of this period — 1939 to 1951 — companies wanting to invest money in Africa required the approval of Canada’s Foreign Exchange Control Board.

Towards the end of the colonial period Thomson International Limited, publisher of the Globe and Mail, acquired half of the Amalgamated Press of Nigeria.122 For their part, Rio Tinto and Chromium Mining and Smelting Corporation had mining concessions in Southern Rhodesia.123

Business ties to companies pillaging the Congo grew during the final decade of Belgian rule. Canada-based Brockville Chemicals, Neelon Steel, McAllister Towing, Iroquois Glass and Fastcut Bits all did business with Belgian behemoth Société Générale, which controlled much of the Congolese economy, including mining giant Union Minière.124 In 1951 Société Générale created Canadian subsidiary Sogemines. A Belgian businessman Felix Notebaert put Société Générale honorary governor Gaston Blaise in touch with James Muir, the president of the Royal Bank of Canada and Jules Timmins, head of Hollinger mines.125 Muir, Royal Bank Vice President H. Howard Q.C. and a partner in a law firm close to the Royal Bank, F. Campbell Cope, all became directors of Sogemines.126

A Montréal registered company, Sudkat, had six board members who also sat on the board of Société Générale. Another two also sat on the board of Union Minière.127

At the end of 1957 the Royal Bank (with eight other banks) financed a $40 million ($350 million today) World Bank loan to the Belgian colony largely to import machinery to build roadway.128 Anatomy of Big Business explains the link between the Royal Bank and exploitation of the Congo: “The full picture shows a large Canadian bank, linked at home with Sogemines Ltd. which is owned by the Société Générale the owners of the Union Minière, lending money to build roads in the Congo (to the undoubted benefit of Union Minière interests…) while Union Minière profits find their way back through the Société Générale into Sogemines and interests connected with the Royal [Bank] and other banks.”129

Canadian banks were also tied to the British companies driving colonial policy. A number of Canadian banks bought into or developed partnerships with British banks operating in Africa. According to Canadian Banks and Global Competitiveness, “in 1920, a substantial interest in the Colonial Bank was purchased [by the Bank of Montréal] to fill out the branch network and to provide representation in the West Indies and West Africa.”130 A year earlier the Royal Bank of Canada established an association with the Westminster Bank and towards the end of the colonial period Scotia Bank cultivated a relationship with the Midland Bank.131 Both of these British banks had operations in Africa.132

Of course, Canadian banks were prominent around the world. Near the end of the colonial period in 1960 three of the world’s twelve biggest banks were Canadian and Canadian banks oversaw 15% of the international foreign currency market.133

One major Canadian company also forayed into large-scale footwear production in Africa. With operations dating back to the 1930s Toronto-based Bata Shoes set up shop across the continent. By the end of the colonial era it had production or retail facilities in Nigeria, Kenya, Morocco, South Africa, Egypt, Sierra Leone, Libya, Sudan, Algeria, Senegal, Congo, Tanzania and Rhodesia.134 In the 1940s and 50s, notes a company history, “the organization’s expansion was especially great in francophone Africa. As Mr. Bata himself noted, there was no country in that part of the world where his company was not established as the number-one supplier of footwear.”135 While “Mr. Bata” may not be the most objective source on the shoemaker, a government study just after independence found the company controlled 70% of the footwear market in British East Africa (Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania).136

In a 1974 Saturday Night article titled “Canadians Too, Can Act like Economic Imperialists”, Steve Langdon described the company’s operations in Kenya: “Bata seems to be undercutting decentralized rural development in Kenya, to be blocking African advance in other areas, and to be throwing its weight around politically — all at a handsome profit.”137 In a bid to subvert the establishment of a domestic competitor, the Toronto-based multinational wrote its overseas suppliers to discourage sales to its challenger and asked Kenyan government officials to intervene on its behalf.138

Bata’s mechanized production methods squeezed out indigenous footwear producers all the while increasing imports of plastics and machinery, which came at the expense of local materials (leather) and employment. In the 1975 article “Canada’s Relations with Africa” Robert Matthews notes that Bata drained “money and opportunity from poor rural areas” to the benefit of a small group of locals and Toronto head office.139

When the post-independence Tanzanian government announced that it would acquire a 60 percent share of a multitude of major foreign firms Bata was the only hold out.140 The Toronto firm attempted to sabotage Tanzania’s push to acquire a controlling interest in the local company’s operations. In Underdevelopment and Nationalization: Banking in Tanzania James H. Mittelman explains: “Bata Shoes (a Canadian-based concern), for example, ran down stocks, removed machinery, supplied imperfect items, and later withdrew all staff, supposedly closing down for annual repairs! The Company refused to relinquish more than 49 per cent of its controlling interests, tried to set up a new wholesaling operation dependent on its firm in Kenya, and urged other foreign investors to fight.”141

Bata’s aggressive reaction to Tanzania’s efforts aimed to dissuade other newly independent African countries from following a similar path.142 The shoemaker no doubt feared for its significant operations across the continent.

In 1960 Toronto-based Frobisher Limited (Falconbridge) had some $14 million ($140 million today) invested in various parts of Africa.143 They had small operations in the two Rhodesias (Zimbabwe and Zambia), a phosphate and columbite concession on the Uganda-Kenya border as well as a 52-million-acre oil concession in Somalia-Kenya.144 Adding to their investments at the start of the 1950s Frobisher discovered a large iron ore deposit in Mauritania.145

A decade before Uganda won its independence, Falconbridge acquired a 70% stake in the Kilembe copper-cobalt mine in the western part of the country. The London controlled Colonial Development Corporation and Uganda Development Corporation owned the rest of the mine and provided the “necessary” financing to bring it into production.146 This massive project included a hydroelectric station and only became viable once the colonial authority constructed a railway to the site. The highly profitable mine produced more than $250 million ($1 billion today) worth of copper yet paid no income tax until its capital was fully recovered in 1965.147 In 1968, post-independence leader Milton Obote increased the country’s copper export tax and then moved to gain majority control of the mine. Falconbridge quickly stripped out $6 million in special dividend payments and threatened to withdraw its management from the country.148 Falconbridge: Portrait of a Canadian Mining Multinational explains: “Although Kilembe Copper was both profitable and socially important in the Ugandan economy, this did not prevent the Falconbridge group from withdrawing capital as rapidly as possible just before president Obote forced it to sell Uganda a controlling interest in 1970. The implication was that its management team would be withdrawn entirely if the government did not restore Falconbridge’s majority ownership. Dislocation in the lives of Ugandan people was a price the company seemed willing to pay in this tug-of-war over the profits from Uganda’s resources.”149

The Kilembe mine also contaminated Elizabeth National Park and tailings seeped into Lake George, near Uganda’s western border with the Congo. Though it closed in 1978, the arsenic deposited in the lake continues to worry scientists.150

Upon taking office, General Idi Amin returned control of the Kilembe mine to Falconbridge. (This was maintained for several years, after which Amin returned the mine to his government.) He had managed to overthrow Obote’s government in January 1971 with the aid of Britain, Israel and the US. Popular UK historian Mark Curtis explains: “Britain consciously supported and connived in the rise of Idi Amin because of long-standing British interests to get rid of governments like that of Obote” whose economic policies threatened its corporate interests.151 A Foreign Office memo noted that Obote’s nationalizations, which also included Bata, had “serious implications for British business in Uganda and Africa generally … other countries will be tempted to try and get away with similar measures with more damaging consequences for British investment and trade.”152

Little has been published about Ottawa’s position on Amin’s rise to power. The available documentation suggests Ottawa passively supported the putsch. On three occasions during the early days of the coup (between January 26 and February 3, 1971) the Pierre Trudeau government responded to inquiries from opposition MPs about developments in Uganda and whether Canada would grant diplomatic recognition to the new regime.153 Within a week of Obote’s ouster, both External Affairs Minister Mitchell Sharp and Prime Minister Trudeau passed up these opportunities to denounce Amin’s usurpation of power. They remained silent as Amin suspended various provisions of the Ugandan Constitution and declared himself president, commander in chief of the armed forces, army chief of staff and chief of air staff. They failed to condemn a leader, now infamous, for plunging the nation into a torrent of violence.

In African Pearls and Poisons: Idi Amin’s Uganda; Kenya; Zaire’s Pygmies, Alberta bureaucrat Leo Louis Jacques describes a conversation he had with the CIDA liaison officer in Uganda who facilitated his 1971-73 appointment to the Uganda College of Commerce. Asked whether the change in government would affect his CIDA-funded position, the aid agency’s liaison officer in Uganda, Catrina Porter, answered Jacques thusly: “‘Yes, there was a coup on January 25th, 1971 and it was a move that promises to be an improvement. The new administration favours Democracy and Western Civilization’s Democracy, while the former one favoured the Communists.’ I [Jacques] said, ‘I understand the present government is being run by the Ugandan army under the control of a General named Idi Amin Dada. What is he like?’ Porter said ‘General Amin’s gone on record as saying he loves Canada and the Commonwealth. He also vowed that his country of Uganda would have democratic elections soon. The British and Americans have recognized him as the Ugandan government and so do we.’”154

In mid-1973 the Canadian high commissioner in Nairobi visited Uganda to ask Amin if he would attend the annual Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting taking place in Ottawa. But, the primary objective of the high commissioner’s meeting was to convince Amin to reverse his nationalization of Bata. A cable published by WikiLeaks read: “CANADIAN HIGH COMMISSIONER OLIVIER MET WITH PRESIDENT AMIN JUNE 29 TO DISCUSS GOU TAKE-OVER OF BATA SHOE FIRM. AMIN REVERSED EARLIER DECISION AND ORDERED THAT A NEW PARTNERSHIP ARRANGEMENT (51 PERCENT BATA, 49 PERCENT GOU) BE WORKED OUT.”155

The meeting took place merely 10 months after Amin gave Uganda’s South Asian community 90 days to leave the country, perhaps his most widely publicized human rights violation. The high commissioner, however, appears to have ignored the matter. But, the cable notes: “OTHER MAJOR CANADIAN INVESTMENT IN UGANDA, KILEMBE MINES (70 PERCENT FALCONBRIDGE OWNED) IS DOING WELL.”156

In 1977 Amin’s government established Uganda’s first resident high commissioner in Ottawa.157 External Affairs didn’t object, claiming it would be an opportunity to register criticism of human rights violations. The nationalizations during Obote’s first turn at governance were perceived as a threat to Western corporate interests established during the colonial period. As a result, Ottawa heaved a sigh of relief at Obote’s demise. The immediate result was Idi Amin’s violent and maniacal regime.

The largest Canadian investor in colonial Africa was Aluminum Limited (Alcan) with some $30 million in property.158 In 1937 the company appointed its first resident representative for Africa and later assigned top executive Edwin J. Mejia to oversee relations with the French colonial authorities. Mejia later received France’s Legion of Honour.159

Towards the end of the colonial period Alcan opened operations in Port Harcourt and Lagos, Nigeria.160 A decade earlier the company commenced operations in the Gold Coast through its purchase of West African Aluminum Limited in 1947.161 But their initial interest in colonial Africa dates back three decades earlier. In 1916 the company started exploring in Guinea and a dozen years later began operating through a French subsidiary.162 In 1938 Alcan opened a bauxite mine on the Island of Tamara in the Isles de Los. (As noted in Chapter 1, in 1904 London gave the island — and some other African territory — to France in exchange for its relinquishment of fishing rights in Newfoundland.) To construct a wharf on this island just off the coast of Conakry the Canadian company turned to the colonial penal system with most of the 170 workmen pressed into service from the local penitentiary.163

Fifteen years later Alcan opened a modern plant on the island to supply its smelters in Québec.164 Les Mines et la Recherche Minière en Afrique Occidentale Française describes the island just off the Guinea coast as “a Canadian enclave” at the beginning of production in 1951.165 Alcan employed some 1,200 workers to build the site with the African labourers paid 5,000 Fr. ($20 Canadian) a month.166

In 1953 the director of mines for French West Africa granted Alcan exclusive prospecting rights over 2,000 km² of territory in Western Guinea.167 The company discovered one of the richest bauxite deposits in the world in the Boké region. During a 1956 visit to France’s West African colonies Canada’s ambassador to France, Jean Désy, inspected the nascent Boké site.168

After Guinea’s 1958 independence the Boké project became highly contentious.169 In January 1961 much of the workforce went on a weeklong strike to demand the dismissal of a dozen white managers.170 Later that year the mine was nationalized. Negotiating the Bauxite/Aluminium Sector under Narrowing Constraints notes, “in November 1961, the government took possession of the Kassa and Boké sites because of the failure of the private firm, Les Bauxites du Midi (a 100% subsidiary of Alcan) to observe its agreement to transform locally bauxite to alumina by 1964.”171 When the government voided its contract Alcan illegally secreted out company files from Guinea.172

As colonialism came under pressure from those seeking to govern themselves, Canadian corporate involvement in Africa grew. Foreign policy was becoming ever more directly tied to the interests of specific Canadian firms. This trend continued as Canadian governments manoeuvred to protect “our interests” as newly independent nations and liberation movements struggled to break free from imperialism.