Shifting priorities: The evolution of Canada's relations with French Africa, 1945--1968

In the 1940s and 1950s, the Canadian government viewed developments in France's African dependencies through the prism of the Cold War, the importance to Canada of its relations with France, and France's membership in the North Atlantic alliance. All of these factors influenced Canadian policy towards the French African territories as they progressed towards independence from France. In the 1960s, however, the Canadian government became increasingly aware of the need to pursue substantive relations with the newly independent French African countries as a result of the government of Quebec's growing interest in pursuing its own autonomous international identity. By the end of the 1960s, Canada and Quebec were engaged in an open and vigorous competition over which of them had the right to speak for Canada's French-speaking people within the French-speaking international community known as la francophonie . The Canadian government has been criticised for ignoring French Africa until the crises of the late 1960s were virtually upon it, but this perspective fails to take into account the degree to which Canada did take an interest in this part of the world prior to the late 1960s, and the factors that inhibited the Canadian government from developing its relations with French Africa more fully, such as the fear of offending the French government.