Canadian High Commissioner to Barbados and the OECS Mr. David Marshall, and Programme Heads at the Bridgetown-based High Commission, made a call on Director General Dr. Len Ishmael and senior management at the Secretariat, on Tuesday May 6th. High Commissioner Marshall had earlier in the day met with the Cabinet of St. Lucia to discuss Canada’s Strategy for the Caribbean. 

Canada’s Prime Minister Mr. Stephen Harper, while on a visit to the Caribbean last year, signaled his intention to make closer Canada-Caribbean ties a foreign relations priority for his government.  To this end, the Prime Minister announced a doubling of Canada’s annual  development assistance to the region from Can$30 to Can$60 million. This amount has been guaranteed for the next ten years. The assistance will be directed at three main pillars of development – poverty, security and governance. 

Canada and the Caribbean are soon to also begin negotiations for a new trade agreement to replace CARIBCAN, the trade agreement which allowed 95 percent of Caribbean goods to enter the Canadian market duty free.  Negotiations for the new agreement will take into account the region’s shift in economic output from goods to services.

High Commissioner Marshall was keen to indicate the proposed agreement has no hidden Canadian agenda and is not an attempt to flood the Caribbean market with Canadian products.  Instead he said the negotiations will reflect Ottawa’s longstanding and growing interest in assisting the development of the Caribbean.

The OECS Secretariat has worked along with the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) – Canada’s principal vehicle for development assistance, to execute a number of projects across the OECS.