From “special relationship” to “strategic partnership”: prospects for renewal of Canada-CARICOM relations in a polarizing global political economy

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper assesses the prospect for a renewed era of bilateral cooperation amongst Canada and the Caribbean Community. It argues that ongoing efforts to operationalize the Canada-CARICOM Strategic Partnership entail promising preliminary signs, but that substantive renewal requires a new mutual fidelity encompassing credible commitments toward a more equitable political profit-sharing arrangement. For Canada’s part, these include enhancing domestic market access for key CARICOM exporters, explicit recognition of vulnerable CARICOM business sectors, effective legal protections for temporary foreign workers, and a new juridical approach toward naturalized legal offenders. For CARICOM, credibility entails renewed efforts at integrating member-state firms into Canadian value chains alongside a new collective vision for regional development. En lieu of such commitments the new strategic partnership seems destined to perpetuate an increasingly listless bilateral continuum.