Professor Berry's interview

As said yesterday, I got an interview with professor Berry, professor in IDS at UofT.

Professor Berry had extensive knowledge about the history of development in Canada. From our interview, I got the confirmation that Canada is not 'helping' other countries in order to be philantropic but instead to gain more international recognition. Thus, Canada has been losing a lot of its influence -mainly in the last 50 years- and is trying to get at least some back.

After WWII, Canada, who had a significant role in the war, was in an excellent position in the world since the territory did not suffer from the devastation of the war like the European countries. Hence, canadians and americans found themselves in a position of power and able to help others. Since the process of decolonisation was at its peak, development was the main goal of these small countries. As a result, there was a rush after the war to provide foreign aid from the rich countries to the poor ones.

In this case, Canada, but mostly the United States, were not just helping because of these ex-colonies needs, but mainly because they were afraid of the soviets growing power. In the 1930s, americans went through the big Crash, a dark era in their history. Since the Soviets, that were communists, did not have the same experience as in the western world, their system attracted a lot of ex-colonies. In order to remain an hegemony, the US started pouring money in trying to develop small countries and hence making sure that they would not become communist as well. The United States were in a period of fear and hysteria under McCarthy since he perceived communists as a military and a ideological threat. Hence, it was important for Canada to maintain an excellent relationship with the United States since they are their major partner in terms of trades. It is in this context that Canada also started to donate intensively to smaller countries and simultaneously built their world wide reputation of humanitarian.

Lester B. Pearson, who was a famous diplomat before becoming Canada's Prime Minister, created the Pearson Commission whose target in terms of development elsewhere was quoted at 0.7%. Canada is a land made of immigrants fom all areas in the world, hence, the government often felt the pressure from the electorat to help other countries where these immigrants were from. It is for these main reasons that Canada started sending money everywhere without really any guidelines. Canada got in a position where the country's money allocated to development overseas was too spread thin . It needed to find a way to be more efficient in terms of the help given.

To fix the problem of being to spread out, Canada decided to set some guidelines for aid and this is how CIDA- Canadian International Development Agency- was created around the 1960s-1970s. Again in this time, Canada was very involved in the world because of its immigrant population. But soon enough, the country ran out of money. The 1980s and early 1990s were very difficult years for Canadians as their were fiscal, recession and public deficit. As a result of this situation, focus was imparative. The government decided to focus on lower income countries and strenghening our ties with selected countries that would give them economic advantages as well as recognition on the international scene. Canada wanted to draw an example on Scandinavian countries who would develop an expertize of specific areas to develop instead of sending money everywhere.

And this is how the shift in Canada's help overseas happened.

Professor Berry also talked about the concept of development as a business. He explains that according to him their is not really anything wrong with wanting to have some advantage in helping someone else, but the problem would arise if the business side if it would prevail over the philantropy; which would result in an unbalance. Hence, since the Canadian market is much smaller than the American one, it is not uncommon to see the Canadian governement to tie the aid or in order words to provide things we have an expertize at producing in the countries it is helping. For example, Canada could promise a country to give them money at the condition they would use that money for their infrastructure instead of their educational system. Canada does so because it knows that Sweden, that have a much better educational system than theirs has much more chance to get the contract from this LDC. As a result, this method is a way of insuring that Canada gets his money back from the LDC since Canada's material for infrastructure is widely reknowed. Hence, we give money from the left hand and than take it back from the right since the country in question would buy the product from us.

When I asked Professor Berry why did Canada got involved in Haiti, he explained to me that Haiti is everything Canada could ask for in terms of country to help. First of all, there is the geographic location. Haiti is very close to Canada: it is only a 4 hours flight. Morover, there are also historical connections: Haiti used to be a French colony. Quebec, one of Canada's biggest province, has a majority of french speakers since it was also colonized by the French in the 1600s. Because of its cultural differences, Quebec was able to enjoy a great amount of priviledges in the federal ladder, such as an overrepresentation in the government, including in CIDA. Since Quebec and Haiti share several similarities in terms of culture and language, Quebec feels a certain duty toward the latter. One should not forget also that because of the similarities in cultures, numerous Haitians fled the island, due to political instability, to established themselves in the "Belle Province". Hence, Montreal is the 3rd city in the world after Miami and New York, that Haitians call 'home'. As a result, Haitians have a fair barganing power with politicians in Quebec and Canada.

As said earlier, Canada lost a lot of its prestige in the past 50 years. Hence, it needs to provide help where it will feel recognized. Because of Papa Doc and Baby Doc, two notorious dictators from the 1950s to the end of 1980s, Haiti got a lot of publicity internationally. Hence, for Canada to stand up and 'volunterely' help this country in need is the best way for canadians to feel good about themselves.

One question that professor Berry was asking out loud was how much do Canada actually mimic the US. He explains that since a big part of our market depends on Americans, Canada is constantly trying to get to good favors of the Unites States and hence avoid to upset them. Hence, the Canadian government chose its battles. In history, there are 2 times worth of remembering when Canada actually stood up to its giant neighbour; when Canada refused to join for the Vietnam war in the 1960s and the Iraq 4 years ago. Of course, in these two cases, the Americans were upset and expressed their disaproval by becoming stricter with the northern side of their border. In this context, we see why Canada is always trying to please the americans.

According to one article I read, Canada volunteered to send aid to Haiti. How much did Canada actually volunteered? Was the US behind our government volunteering in this country in crisis? TO some respect, were we trying to please our neighbour one more time? Neighter professor Berry or I could come up with an answer to these questions, but we both agree that wether or not Canada received any suggestion from the US to help Haiti, Canada had already all the reasons to provide aid.