Barbadian labour

Barbados Wants to Deepen Relations with Canada

By William Doyle-Marshall

Barbados and. Canada have had very fruitful relationship, a long historical relationship to the extent, at one stage in its history Barbados offered to become part of the Canadian federation. We’ve got a lot of our international businesses out of Canada.” says Prime Minister Freundel J. Stuart

He was in Toronto earlier in the Fall and  was the keynote speaker at the DLP Barbados (Canada)  annual fundraising dinner/dance,  at which  Ten time Calypso Monarch of Barbados Red Plastic Bag performed current hits “Feting” and “Sweetness” and previous top tunes to get the dancing started.

   At a Saturday morning press conference  with members of the Canadian ethnic media Mr. Stuart reported that during a previous visit with representatives of the Canadian banking industry, he left satisfied that the bankers were comfortable with Barbados. Their confidence in the country remains undiminished, he emphasized. Among the Canadian institutions operating in Barbados are the Bank of Nova Scotia, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce and the Royal Bank of Canada.

PM Stuart and his power team in Toronto

   Prime Minister Stuart who is also Minister of National Security and is responsible for the portfolio Public Service and Urban Development wants to deepen the Canada-Barbados relationships especially after being assured that there were no challenges facing them that his government should address. “We don’t only want that to remain staple, we want our relationship deepen so that our international business and financial services can benefit,” Prime Minister Stuart said.

   Stuart acknowledged that unemployment is a challenge in Barbados (between 10 and eleven percent). Even though Barbados is doing better than many countries, the government is not satisfie. It has been trying to find out where the skills deficits in Canada can be found and the extent to which Barbadian labour can respond to some of those deficits. “There is a close relationship between the two countries and we have to concentrate on deepening that relationship, enriching it, broadening it for the benefit of the parties” the Prime Minister explained.

  Recently Barbados’ Minister of Labour and Social Security Dr. Esther Byer-Suckoo, was here exploring some of those possibilities. He visited Alberta and other provinces talking with representatives about the situation. The Samuel Jackman Prescod Polytechnic trains a lot of young people with technical skills, the Prime Minister said. His government is looking for similar Canadian institutions with which there can be a smooth exchange of training opportunities that hopefully could result in the movement of people out of Barbados.

   Prime Minister Stuart visualized Canada as a vast country with still a lot of unexploited opportunities. As part of the growth agenda of Canada, Barbados would like to see itself playing a critical part, he suggested.

   Emphasizing the close link between both countries the Prime Minister recalled a time in Barbadian history, not too long ago, a former Canadian Prime Minister John Diefenbaker spent his summers in Barbados. The late Pierre Trudeau had an excellent relationship with Barbados resulting not only from the traditional Barbados-Canada connection but from a link through personal association between Trudeau and the late Errol Barrow, prime minister of Barbados. They were students at the London School of Economics along with Guyana’s Forbes Burnham and Jamaica’s Michael Manley.

   Former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney paid a state visit to Barbados and Prime Minister Stephen Harper has also visited the island. Recently Harper met with Canada’s Governor General David Johnston on Barbadian soil to discuss matters of mutual interest between both countries.

   Questioned about a recent decision by the Government of Canada demanding that nationals of St. Vincent and the Grenadines and St. Lucia require visas to enter the country he could not say what caused those nationals to make fraudulent applications to become Canadian citizens. Being aware of the situation that demanded a response by the Canadian government, Stuart said emigration from the region and  immigration into countries in the North Atlantic have always been a challenge that is not going to end any time soon.

   “The challenge has now taken a different shape. Emigration from the North Atlantic into some of the islands of the Caribbean is a challenge too. So it’s not a one-way street. It’s not that people from the Caribbean are all lining up trying to get into the North Atlantic but people from the North Atlantic are trying to get into the Caribbean. What this crisis has been showing is people in so-called richer countries have been leaving those countries and going to developing countries where the prospects seem better,” the Prime Minister observed.

    Angola is seeing an increasing number of people out of Portugal and a number of people from Spain have been emigrating to Latin America because the Spanish situation is so bare and Latin America is not doing badly in the context of this global crisis, Prime Minister Stuart reported

Austin Clarke's 2012 literary award

Harbourfront Awards Author with little regard for recognition

By William Doyle-Marshall
The eminent Barbadian-born author Dr. Austin C. Clarke received the 2012 Harbourfront Award towards the end of October in recognition of his years of writing and contribution to the Canadian literary scene.
  When he learnt of his selection from Geoffrey Taylor, director of the International Festival of Authors, it took him a while to recognize this was not just a beautiful recognition for his existence in the city. But it came at a time when he was completely broke.
   So it was a time of rejoicing as he was between books when news of the award broke. It made the writing easier, for this prolific Barbadian author who has been a pillar of the Caribbean-Canadian literary community. ”This is a very serious thing to say because it has implications that you writing for money which of course you don’t want to admit to, but of course is the fact,” he admitted.

Dr. Austin Clarke at York University
receiving his Honourary
Doctorate

   “It was an appreciated recognition by me of the number of years I spent writing and being broke and suffering and so on. I took it very seriously because it was not a personal thing but it was more serious than that. “After all these years I have been recognized; not that I was seeking recognition but it doesn’t detract from the worth of the award of the prize when you are recognized,” Clarke confessed.
   His first attempt at creative writing was a long poem in 1964 “Intractable”and poorly structured which he showed to Bob Weaver, a literary guru of the city who advised Clarke to quit wanting to be a poet and concentrate on prose. Reflecting on the advise these many years later, Austin remembers telling Weaver that he made possible for “Canada’s best poet” and his reputation to be cat spraddled because he thought it did not have any worth. He still has the poem although he cannot remember it by heart. In retrospect the award-winning author concludes Weaver’s judgement was correct.
   Dr. Clarke’s combined contribution to the civil and literary life of his adopted province and country inspired honours like the Order of Ontario, the Order of Canada the W.O. Mitchell Prize and the Martin Luther King Junior Award for Excellence in Writing,
    Martin Singer Dean of the Faculty of Liberal Arts and Professional Studies  presented Clarke for an Honourary Doctorate at York University two years ago. He told the convocation ceremony Clarke represents one of Canada’s most respected and prolific writers, one whose fiction reaches across barriers of race, class and geography to offer a picture of a complex Canadian landscape into which are etched the memories and rhythms of the Caribbean.
   Back in 1964 Clarke worked for a Don Mills firm. His boss sent  him to do radio programmes in Toronto. Reflecting on that experience the aging Barbadian literary icon noted the whole concept of distance (leaving Don Mills for downtown Toronto) was quite a journey especially in the winter.
    “Being trained by the Thompson press you were exposed to every aspect of publishing including sweeping and learning to use the camera and all that,” Clarke recalls. One Monday morning a mail came to him (in the office) and he felt that was very good. And being a bit of a braggart, announced it to the whole editorial room and the boss heard. “He came to me and said ‘oh no. That is not for you. It is for the company.’”
   That spurred on the young, aspiring, un-named writer to consider writing for himself. He immediately contacted a friend about creating his personal letterheads. That launched his career as a freelance writer and later a winner of awards.  He played down the importance of awards.
   “I would write the book and then surrender it to the critics and book reviewers. I would not hinge my life to that kind of material success. I was writing for pleasure and I told myself I was writing for pleasure and to be writing for pleasure meant you were a real writer. I wasn’t writing for awards. Of course now that I have had a few awards it is very beautiful. I am not saying anything deleterious about that.”
   Clarke novelist, short story writer, journalist and public intellectual, arrived in Canada 1955 at the age of 21. The journalism he undertook for the CBC in 1963 included reporting on the civil rights and black power movement in the United States where he had the opportunity to interview, among others Malcolm X.
October 27, 2012