When it comes to critical minerals, Canada and the US are dead set on replacing China’s supply with reserves elsewhere, namely Latin America and Africa. And given the exploitative way that mining firms function, “decoupling” means more exploitation, more undermining of state sovereignty, and more conflict with those who oppose selling out their mining industries to foreign capital.

Globally, the numbers pro- and anti-Russia are roughly even, but the tide seems to be drifting slightly in favour of the former. Russian foreign policy vis-à-vis the West is in tatters. Elsewhere, however, its diplomacy is proving quite effective. It is a fact with which the West sooner or later is going to have to come to terms.

This October, the United Nations Security Council is holding meetings to discuss the conflict in Western Sahara. Numerous African countries including South Sudan, Algeria, and Namibia have been vocal in their support for the implementation of a solution to the conflict, including through “a free and fair referendum,” but Western countries have mostly remained silent.

Thomas Sankara’s vision of an independent, socialist, pan-Africanist model of development⁠—one in which wealth produced in Africa remains in Africa to develop the majority of the population⁠—was not buried with him. As CD columnist Owen Schalk writes, he remains an inspiring symbol for people in Africa and beyond.

While claiming to support Zambia’s efforts to free itself of its debt burden, the Trudeau government has given its support to Canadian mining companies operating in Africa and has joined the long succession of Canadian prime ministers who support IMF reforms on the continent. The latest wave of neoliberal impositions will only serve to benefit foreign capital.

Professor Richard Wolff discusses the powerful economic partnership of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS). “They are the engine of the world economy in a way that was once said of Western Europe, North America and Japan. The engine, the powerhouse, the growth mobile, all of that. That’s moved, friends. And it’s moved in large part to the BRICS.”

While there is no direct Canadian involvement in the Marikana massacre, Canadian mining companies and the Canadian state played a sizeable role in ensuring that the post-apartheid ANC government did not radically restructure the economy for the benefit of the Indigenous black majority, and that they retained a favourable investment climate for foreign companies.

Trudeau’s statement totally omits Canada’s diplomatic support for Amin’s 1971 coup against his predecessor, the left-leaning Milton Obote, or the fact that the Canadian government collaborated with Amin on business investment, notably mining, especially during the early part of his reign. This collaboration continued following Amin’s expulsion of Uganda’s South Asian population.

The documents obtained by Ottawa-based researcher Ken Rubin reveal that Ottawa still goes to bat for Canadian-based transnationals, ensuring that states in the Global South don’t move too close to the perils of what industry figures often call “resource nationalism.” It seems not to matter what abuse is committed—the primacy of capital wins out for the Canadian state.

In the context of the Russia-Ukraine war and the profitable exploitation of battery metals, Canadian politicians have stressed the need to maintain and expand access to critical minerals in Africa. Such access will have the effect of keeping the continent as a crucial supplier of the minerals with which Canada and its allies hope to blunt the economic blowback of the invasion.