Canada and the security-development nexus in Haiti: the “dark side” or changing shades of gray?

Abstract

Walby and Monaghan have argued (2011) that security assistance is the ‘dark side’ of relations between Canada and Haiti. From their viewpoint, Canada has contributed to Haiti's ‘securitization’ by reinforcing the police, prisons and border controls at the expense of human rights and development. This paper offers a more historically-grounded analysis, first by showing how the situation in Haiti and Canadian security assistance improved after 2006. Then it locates security assistance in Ottawa's whole-of-government engagement in Haiti, providing a more fine-grained critique of Canadian discourses and practices. The paper ends by situating its Canada and Haiti-specific conclusions in wider policy and theoretical debates on the security-development nexus in fragile and conflict-affected states.

Dans un article traitant de l'engagement canadien dans le domaine de la sécurité en Haïti, Walby et Monaghan (2011) suggèrent que ces activités représentent le ‘côté sombre’ des relations entre les deux pays. Sombre car, par le biais de son appui au renforcement de la Police Nationale, des prisons et des frontières, le Canada contribue grandement à la ‘sécurisation’ d'Haïti. Cette communication offre une critique plus nuancée, d'abord en montrant comment la situation en Haïti ainsi que l'assistance canadienne dans le secteur de la sécurité ont évoluées après 2006. Ensuite, nous situons cette assistance sectorielle dans le cadre de la coopération pangouvernementale canado-haïtienne, afin d'offrir une critique plus pointue des discours et des pratiques canadiennes. La communication termine en situant nos conclusions contexte-spécifiques dans les débats politiques et théoriques plus larges, notamment sur l’évolution du binôme sécurité-développement dans les États fragiles et les sociétés affectées par les conflits.

Keywords:

• Canada
• security assistance
• securitization
• Haiti
• fragile states

Notes

1 For a grounded analysis of the diffusion of those norms to the community of Western donors and the UN, see Swiss (2011).

2 This analysis of Canadian security and justice programming in Haiti is informed by the author's occasional access to internal documents, which are not cited here since that could jeopardize the anonymity of his sources. It is also informed by regular discussions with Canadian, Haitian and other officials as well as activists since 2004, including hosting the international colloquium on stabilization and development in Haiti at the University of Ottawa in December 2008; participating in meetings of the Security Sector Table hosted by the Canadian Embassy in 2008 and 2009; presenting at a DFAIT Fast Talk on Canada and SSR in Haiti in January 2010; presenting at a DFAIT Fast Talk on Canada and Fragile States in the Americas in March 2011; co-chairing a University of Montreal roundtable on MINUSTAH in November 2011; participating in the Ministerial Roundtable on Canada and Development in Haiti in August 2013; and also co-hosting periodic, off-the-record meetings of the Groupe de Refléxion Canada-Haiti, with the Canadian Red Cross, since 2011.

3 If we included Department of National Defence (DND)'s spending on the deployment of Canadian troops in Haiti, it would bring Canada's security-related expenditures to about 20 per cent of overall Government of Canada spending in/on Haiti since 2004 (Baranyi and Paducel 2012, p. 117). We do not include those amounts in our calculations because they are not classified as international assistance.

4 Jobs and especially youth employment have been identified as global priorities in Haiti and in other fragile states (World Bank 2011, 2013). Nonetheless, neither the Haitian Institute for Statistics nor international institutions such as Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (UN ECLAC) publish reliable unemployment statistics for Haiti.

5 See the detailed case studies in Desrosiers and Baranyi (2012). See Paducel and Salahub (2011) for an analysis of certain OECD donors' and international organizations' policies and programming on gender in FCAS.

6 This reading of Canada's evolving relations with Haiti is consistent with a more historically informed view emerging in the literature on the securitization of aid. Brown, for example, suggests that there has been a modest decline in the securitization of Canadian aid since the post-9/11 era (Brown 2013).

7 As a reminder that Haiti's stability has not disappeared from Ottawa's radar, in June 2013 the Canadian Forces joint military exercises (JOINTEX) simulated a deployment in a complex emergency on “West Island,” a hypothetical location in the Caribbean. For the official statement, see DND 2013. The hypothetical location was confirmed by an anonymous Canadian Forces officer who participated in the exercise.

8 The interplay of bureaucratic, federal-provincial and international factors shaping Canadian whole-of-government engagement in Haiti as well as in other FCAS is analyzed in more detail in Baranyi (2011a) as well as in Baranyi and Paducel (2012).