I’ve always felt that Saint Lucia and other Caribbean Community (CARICOM) island-nations can do better to nurse historical ties with Europe and North America in positive ways between today’s Caribbean leaders and their related colonial or pre-independence international partners.
In Saint Lucia, for example, the colonial relationship with the Royal Family bred a friendship between then-Premier John Compton and then Prince Charles that resulted in the heir to the UK throne being the God-father of one of Sir John’s daughters, Fiona. Sir John also developed a similar relationship with Singapore’s Lee Kwan Yu, who visited the island regularly on his private yacht.

But perhaps one of the biggest fruits Saint Lucia harvested from such close personal relationships was that between Sir John and Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, which is largely credited with having yielded the Castries Comprehensive Secondary School (CCSS) since circa 1970.
Similarly, Pierre Trudeau’s affection for the Caribbean will have played a part in Canada’s donation of two sizeable ships that played the greatest role in forging inter-Caribbean integration before independence.

‘Federal Palm’ and ‘Federal Maple’ symbolised Caribbean and Canadian emblems and the two ships, plying between Jamaica in the north and Trinidad & Tobago in the south, facilitated regular, timely and dependable passenger and cargo traffic up-and-down the island-chain, in ways never repeated since they disappeared into forgotten Caribbean history.
But, at a time when CARICOM leaders have (for decades) been bellyaching annually about the near-death of intra-regional travel thanks to the cost of air transport and nursing migraine-sized headaches about the need to resume inter-island marine traffic like it used to be, it would appear that time has provided another once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for the region’s leaders to actually (and not proverbially) act now, or forever hold their peace…

CARICOM leaders attending this week’s October 17-19, 2023 Canada Summit with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau have before them a one-time opportunity to try to convince their host, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, about extending his late dad’s positive Caribbean legacy by revisiting the ‘Federal ships’ model and seeking its revival in these new and terrible times for regional transport.

In this age when hundreds or thousands of Canadian-owned passenger and cargo ships continue being buoyed or anchored permanently, or sent to wrecking shipyards just because they are no longer competitive on their Canadian routes, it should be possible for Caribbean leaders to ask for–and even offer to pay, if necessary – at least four appropriately-sized working ships to enhance regional travel up, down and across the CARICOM – and the wider Caribbean region.
Back then, Federals ‘Palm’ and ‘Maple’ facilitated intra-regional trade as ‘speculators’ (later called ‘traffickers’) moved their goods between the smaller Windward and Leeward Islands and Trinidad & Tobago.

The two ships also facilitated travel by the University of the West Indies (UWI) students between Jamaica and Trinidad & Tobago – and the islands in between.
Air travel helped drive-down shipping trade and travel and has now become unaffordable, the region now facing a travel crisis (by sea and air) thanks to the abandoning of responsibility for intra-regional travel to the private sector, leaving regional airlines to the mercy of international competitors they simply can’t compete with.
Today, CARICOM faces the double-whammy of intra-regional air transport being unaffordable, while ‘shipping’ is also dominated by international air cargo lines like DHL and Federal Express.

But today too – this week – Prime Minister Philip J. Pierre and fellow CARICOM leaders have a one-time chance to talk to Canada about assisting the region to overcome its air-and-sea travel problems in a way that will also facilitate a revival of intra-regional trade and travel – including Guyana and Suriname, Belize, and The Bahamas — in these new times when Caribbean tourism still largely depends on today’s international cruise lines and extra-regional travel agencies.
LIAT is still virtually flying on one wing after being clipped by the likes of disgraced American financier Alan Stanford’s ‘Caribbean Sun’ airline, that once offered flights to anywhere in the region at a ridiculously low price of US $10.

Trinidad & Tobago is also still struggling to keep the old BWIA and B-Wee’s birds flying as Caribbean Airlines today, while the Geest ships that exported bananas and general cargo to Europe (for long decades), now concentrate on container traffic.
Dominica, Grenada, Saint Lucia, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines somehow agreed to allow the Windward Islands Banana Development Company (WIBDECO) to sell-off its shares in the Geest Industries shipping arrangement – now questionable, in costly retrospect.
The Federal ships have been replaced by the likes of Carnival Cruise Lines and regional cruise tourism is still largely-dominated by the Florida Caribbean Cruise Association (FCCA), while CARICOM island-nations are still talking about registering their capitals as ‘home ports’ for shipping lines.
Instead, they can agree in Canada today on how-best to unite around getting the ships and planes needed at this stage — and in this age, when related graveyards are overflowing with still-functioning air-and-sea craft that can give a huge fillip to a possibly-glorious revival of inter-and-intra regional air and sea transport.
Today’s realities have Guyana working to revive its expansive railway system, which (if it works well for Guyana) can also see Surinam, Jamaica, Trinidad & Tobago – and others — follow suit.

Prime Minister Pierre, with responsibility for regional air transport, can now include the intra-regional shipping trade and travel aspects in one new package of proposals for Prime Minister Trudeau.
We know Haiti will eventually top the agenda alongside the bilateral and multilateral CARICOM-Canada issues on the table in Toronto.
But the region’s leaders owe it to all Caribbean citizens, to our traditional positive historical relationship with Canada and to their own current and historical legacies (at national and regional levels) to find the words and ways to tell, show and convince Prime Minister Trudeau, why he also has his father’s rich Caribbean legacy to protect and preserve – while continuing to build his own.