To Saint Lucia…With Love From Canada

By Lilian Chatterjee As I end my diplomatic career as Canada’s High Commissioner and return to Ottawa, I do so with enormous gratitude and pride for the privilege Prime Minister Justin Trudeau bestowed on me over the past seven years to represent Canada to Guyana, Suriname and CARICOM (2017-2020) and to Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Dominica, Grenada, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean State (2021-2024). I am humbled by the affection and respect that you have for Canada and our long history with you. You taught me that Canada has been with you for hundreds of years and we — like you — gained our independence from Britain. In the beginning, we traded with you — our cod for your rum — and later traded for other natural resources. In the early 1960s, Prime Minister John Diefenbaker’s government gave the West Indies Federation two multipurpose ships — the Federal Palm and the Federal Maple, which you used as a ferry to connect you with your neighbouring islands. During Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau’s tenure in the 1970s and 1980s, in partnership with you, we built schools, airports and even...