Canada and Africa: What Next?

David Black is a professor of Political Science at Dalhousie Universisty in Halifax. He was educated at Trent and Dalhousie; His research focusses on Canada’s role in “development cooperation” and in Sub-Saharan Africa (including human security, diplomacy, and the extractive sector); sport in world politics and development; and disability and global development. He has also published on human rights and identity in Canadian and South African foreign policies, and on post-apartheid South Africa in Africa.

How does the Trudeau government’s approach towards African countries and issues compare with its Liberal predecessors? While in some respects it is still too soon to tell, there are both clear continuities with the inconsistencies of the past, and growing signs of the consolidation of the diminished interest and engagement by the Conservatives. This presentation seeks to explain these signs, and considers the grounds on which a renewed policy approach could still be forged.