Starving the Future, Feeding the Stereotype

February 18th, 2025.

Canada’s Africa Strategy and the Media’s Obsession with Deficiency

The Toronto Star 's editorial decision to retitle Dylan Robertson 's article from "Liberal MP fears Ottawa will imminently release a cash-strapped Africa Strategy" to "Liberal MP fears Ottawa will soon release a cash-poor Africa strategy" isn't just semantics, it is an indictment of a much larger problem in Canadian media and academia: the relentless insistence on framing Africa through the language of deficiency.

The choice of words is revealing. Cash-strapped implies a temporary fiscal constraint, a government managing competing priorities. Cash-poor, however, is an indictment. It paints Canada’s relationship with the African continent as doomed from the outset, reinforcing the well-worn Western trope that Africa, and by extension its people, both on the continent and in Canada, exist in a permanent state of scarcity.

This is not an isolated editorial lapse. It is part of a systemic narrative, carefully nurtured by Canadian media outlets, development organizations and academia, that persistently reduces the continent to a passive recipient of Western aid. It is the same tired framing that dominates public discourse in our country, Africa as a burden, a problem to be solved, a place where Canada’s moral credibility is tested through the benevolence of foreign aid rather than strategic partnership.

For decades, Canadian media and academic institutions have been complicit in flattening Africa into a monolith of dysfunction, ignoring its economic dynamism, technological advancements, and geopolitical significance. The problem is not just that the media gets Africa ‘wrong’, it is that it refuses to get Africa ‘right.’ The same scholars who frame Canada’s Indo-Pacific strategy in terms of economic opportunity and geopolitical necessity suddenly become myopic when discussing Africa, reducing an entire continent to a charity case.

This narrative has real consequences. It distorts policymaking, reduces Africa’s economic agency in global affairs, and delegitimizes the African diaspora in Canada as serious economic and political actors. It also weakens Canada’s own position, limiting its ability to engage Africa as a peer rather than a project.

A Narrative of Deficiency: The Perils of Canada’s Africa Strategy Framing

The Toronto Star’s decision to retitle its article is not just a minor editorial adjustment, it is a symptom of a larger, more insidious narrative that continues to define Canada’s relationship with the continent.

The editorial choice is as revealing as it is problematic. It exposes the deeply entrenched perception that Africa and its people exist in a permanent state of deficiency. Worse still, it projects this same lack onto Canada’s engagement with the continent, suggesting that any initiative, no matter how strategic, no matter how forward-looking, is doomed to fail unless accompanied by an outsized infusion of capital. The framing subtly, yet unmistakably, reinforces the idea that Africa is only worth engaging with if it is the passive recipient of wealth rather than an equal partner in economic, diplomatic, and geopolitical affairs.

Such narratives have real consequences. They distort public perception, reduce Africa’s diverse economies to a monolith of poverty, and diminish the agency of African leaders, businesses, and institutions. They also sideline the African diaspora in Canada, who are actively shaping bilateral relationships that extend far beyond aid.

Canada’s Africa strategy should not be judged solely by the size of the budget it carries. It must be measured by the depth of its vision, the seriousness of its commitments, and the strategic value it brings to both Canada and African nations. To frame it otherwise, to reduce it to a question of money alone, is to misunderstand the very nature of twenty-first-century diplomacy.

If Canada intends to continue to be taken seriously on the world stage, it must abandon these outdated narratives and engage with the African continent, and the global south on the basis of opportunity, not deficiency. The time for a transactional, donor-recipient model of engagement is over. A serious Africa strategy, one worthy of the name, must be about partnership, about co-investment, about recognizing Africa’s strategic importance not as a charity case, but as a powerhouse of global growth, innovation, and leadership.

Yet, as long as the Canadian media and academic institutions remain fixated on portraying Africa as “cash-poor,” Canada itself will remain intellectually and diplomatically bankrupt in its approach to the continent.

It is time to retire the narrative of deficiency. Africa is not a problem to be solved. It is a partner to be engaged.

Canadian Centre for African Affairs and Policy Research , February 18th, 2025.