Dominion Over Palm and Pine: A History of Canadian Aspirations in the British Caribbean by Paula Hastings (review)

Reviewed by: Dominion Over Palm and Pine: A History of Canadian Aspirations in the British Caribbean by Paula Hastings Eric Fillion Hastings, Paula – Dominion Over Palm and Pine: A History of Canadian Aspirations in the British Caribbean. Montréal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2022. 360 p. Dominion Over Palm and Pine begins with a surprising juxtaposition: Canada Firsters and New Democrats appear side-by-side as key actors in the century-long evolution of Unionism, an idea that persistently "captured the imagination of settler Canadians" (p. 3). In fact, the imperial nationalist Robert Grant Haliburton and the progressive MP Max Saltsman are fitting bookends to Paula Hastings's transnational history of Canadian aspirations in the British Caribbean. Whether they contemplated a form of custom union or annexation, a loose partnership or formal admission into the Canadian federation (none of which were intended to promote inter-imperial immigration and an extension of the franchise to non-whites), the likes of Haliburton and Saltsman sought—each in their own ways and time—to cope with US hegemony and to reimagine their country's place within both the British Empire and the Commonwealth. "Unionists," Hastings explains, "drew from a repertoire of racial concepts and assumptions" (p. 9) to imagine a place and a role for Canada in the Caribbean. Among the many reasons for their failure, she underscores "an unfulfilled reckoning with colonialism and its legacies" (p. 236). Caribbean intellectuals and activists as well as members of the African diaspora in Canada were among those who repeatedly held unionists to account. Dominion Over Palm and Pine tells an important story in this moment of racial reckoning and reconciliation. This study of Canadians' imperial ambitions and ambivalence vis-à-vis their Caribbean counterparts began as a doctoral dissertation at Duke University. Two of its chapters were first published as articles in Histoire sociale / Social History [End Page 196] and the Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History. They appear here seamlessly integrated into a six-part chronicle: (1) the emergence of Unionism as an appendage to westward settler expansion in the early decades of Confederation; (2) the effort to align imperial ambitions with broader nation-building processes (from changing demographics to economic growth and governance) at the turn of the twentieth century; (3) the desire of status-seeking Canadians to reap wartime dividends amid a reshuffling of colonial possessions; (4) the interwar pursuit of a role in the Caribbean as an expression of a search for autonomy within the empire; (5) the assertion of leadership within the Commonwealth in response to Great Britain's decreasing influence after the Second World War; and, finally, (6) a renewed interest in the Caribbean to secure for Canadians a place in the sun while trying to offset the preponderant influence of the US during and in the immediate aftermath of the Centennial. Unionists were an eclectic lot. Some were bankers, life insurance brokers, and business leaders while others were journalists, reformers, and lobbyists. A few were elected representatives and they occasionally found receptive—albeit uncommitted—ears among the country's prime ministers: John A. Macdonald, Robert Borden, and William Lyon Mackenzie King, among others. That said, they also were for the most part "English-speaking Canadians" who "defined their national becoming, their evolution in the British Empire-Commonwealth, in relation to the empire's non-white dependencies" (p. 8). A few unionists did hail from French-speaking Quebec: for example, Archibald de Léry Macdonald, mayor of Rigaud and Conservative candidate in the 1911 Federal election, and Jean-François Pouliot, a Liberal MP for Témiscouata who sat as an "Independent" during the second half of the 1940s. As Dominion Over Palm and Pine demonstrates, Unionism was a hard sell in 1960s and 1970s Quebec due to the prevalence of revolutionary nationalist discourses and the emergence of the sovereignty-association movement. What is less clear, though, is how a French-speaking unionist such as Macdonald engaged with the anti-imperialism of his contemporaries Henri Bourassa and Olivar Asselin, cofounders of the Ligue nationaliste. Unionists ultimately failed to elicit interest for their project among the broader population. The idea "never acquired the political force to make...

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