[rad-green] What is shaping Canada’s foreign po licy: human rights, democracy or bankers’ bottom-li ne?

*https://canadiandimension.com/articles/view/what-is-more-likely-to-shape-canadian-policy-in-the-hemisphere-human-rights-democracy-or-bankers-bottom-line
<https://canadiandimension.com/articles/view/what-is-more-likely-to-shape-canadian-policy-in-the-hemisphere-human-rights-democracy-or-bankers-bottom-line>*


*Canadian Dimension          February 5, 2020*

*CANADIAN POLITICS*

*What is shaping Canada’s foreign policy: human rights, democracy or
bankers’ bottom-line?*


*By Yves Engler <https://canadiandimension.com/articles/author/yves-engler>*

*Self-proclaimed Interim President of Venezuela, Juan Guaidó, speaks with
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in Ottawa. Photo by Dave Chan/AFP.*

Last week, Venezuelan politician Juan Guaidó was fêted in Ottawa. The
self-declared president met with Justin Trudeau along with a number of
other high ranking cabinet ministers including Foreign Affairs Minister
Francois-Philippe Champagne. In hopes of “reinvigorating” efforts to bring
democracy to Venezuela, Trudeau said
<https://www.newswire.ca/news-releases/interim-president-of-venezuela-juan-guaido-to-visit-canada-830507706.html>,
“I commend Interim President Guaidó for the courage and leadership he has
shown in his efforts to return democracy to Venezuela, and I
offer Canada’s continued support.”

Guaidó was most recently dethroned as leader of Venezuela’s national
assembly. While the vote was contested, it represents a significant blow to
his year-old claim to be Venezuela’s legitimate president. To shore up his
position as opposition leader, Guaidó travelled to a number of
international capitals and the World Economic Forum in Switzerland.

The Ottawa stop on Guaidó’s legitimacy seeking tour was the latest
instalment of the Trudeau government’s multi-pronged effort to overthrow
the increasingly embattled government of Nicolás Maduro’s. In a bid to help
trigger “regime change”, Ottawa has worked to isolate Caracas by imposing
illegal sanctions, taking the Maduro government to the International
Criminal Court, and granting legitimacy to the claim of a marginal
opposition politician to the Venezuela’s presidency.

On the same day Guaidó was fêted in Ottawa, Scotiabank CEO Brian Porter
penned “A call to action on Venezuela
<https://nationalpost.com/opinion/opinion-a-call-to-action-on-venezuela>”
in the *National Post*. The op-ed urged governments to “seize assets of
corrupt regime officials” and to use the proceeds to give “support to the
democratic movement in Venezuela.” Porter also applauded the Liberal’s
“moral clarity by unambiguously condemning the Maduro regime’s abuses” and
praised their “tremendous courage and leadership in the hemisphere and on
the world stage.”

Scotiabank has long had frosty relations with the Bolivarian government. A
few days after Hugo Chavez’s death in 2013, the *Globe & Mail* Report on
Business published a front-page story
<https://nationalpost.com/opinion/opinion-a-call-to-action-on-venezuela> about
Scotiabank’s interests in Venezuela, which were acquired just before his
rise to power. It noted the “Bank of Nova Scotia [Scotiabank] is often
lauded for its bold expansion into Latin America, having completed major
acquisitions in Colombia and Peru. But when it comes to Venezuela, the bank
has done little for the past 15 years – primarily because the government of
President Hugo Chavez has been hostile to large-scale foreign investment.”

The perspective of the world’s 40th largest bank
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_banks> has played a role in
shaping Ottawa’s position towards Caracas. At the other end of the
continent, its interests have contributed to the Trudeau government’s
support for embattled billionaire president Sebastián Piñera.

A number of stories have highlighted Scotiabank’s concerns about recent
protests against inequality in Chile. For example, the *Financial Post*
noted
<https://business.financialpost.com/news/fp-street/scotiabank-chile-unrest>,
“Scotiabank’s strategic foray into Latin America hits a snag with Chile
unrest” and, in the headline of another article
<https://business.financialpost.com/news/fp-street/riots-state-of-emergency-in-chile-force-scotiabank-to-postpone-investor-day>,
“Riots, state of emergency in Chile force Scotiabank to postpone investor
day.”

Last week, Scotiabank’s CEO blamed the protests
<https://business.financialpost.com/news/fp-street/why-brian-porter-is-doubling-down-on-scotiabanks-latin-american-expansion>
that
began in October on an “intelligence breakdown” with people outside Chile
“that came in with an intention of creating havoc.” In a story titled “Why
Brian Porter is doubling down on Scotiabank’s Latin American expansion
<https://business.financialpost.com/news/fp-street/why-brian-porter-is-doubling-down-on-scotiabanks-latin-american-expansion>”,
he told the *Financial Post*, almost unbelievably, that Twitter accounts
tied to Russia sparked the unrest.

Two weeks into massive demonstrations against Piñera’s government, Trudeau
held a phone conversation with the Chilean president who then had a 14%
approval rating
<https://www.reuters.com/article/us-chile-protests/support-for-chiles-pinera-lowest-for-president-since-pinochet-era-poll-idUSKBN1X60NW>.
According to Amnesty International, 19 people had already died
<https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2019/10/chile-investigacion-para-documentar-violaciones-derechos-humanos/>
and
dozens more were seriously injured in protests that began against a hike in
transit fares and later morphed into a broader challenge to economic
inequality. Several thousand people were also arrested by a government that
declared martial law and sent the army into the streets.

According to the published report of the conversation, Trudeau and Piñera
discussed their joint campaign to remove Venezuela’s president while the
Prime Minister criticized “election irregularities in Bolivia
<https://pm.gc.ca/en/news/readouts/2019/10/29/prime-minister-justin-trudeau-speaks-president-chile-sebastian-pinera>”,
which were disingenuously used to justify ousting left-leaning Indigenous
president Evo Morales in late-2019.

A *Canadian Press* story noted
<https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/trudeau-chile-s-pinera-speak-before-apec-and-climate-summits-cancelled-1.4662892>,
“a summary from the Prime Minister’s Office of Trudeau’s phone call with
Piñera made no direct mention of the ongoing turmoil in Chile, a thriving
country with which Canada has negotiated a free trade agreement.”

Despite numerous appeals
<https://www.straight.com/news/1336776/vancouver-residents-e-petition-calls-canada-urge-chilean-government-end-military-and>
from
Canada’s Chilean community, the Trudeau government has stayed quiet
concerning the fiercest repression in Chile since Augusto Pinochet’s
dictatorship. A delegation
<https://miningwatch.ca/news/2020/1/28/canadian-delegation-receives-report-linking-human-and-environmental-abuses-canadian?__cf_chl_jschl_tk__=2ce6bd94dcaf4e74da25813a56177abc2ffdb022-1580688783-0-ARMDb9WqRImQ-VzNXAod0ryhzA_dEGXhE-PPAmGsDw-j6KcvD6PjTBut5oeq3A6YZWCXFvznT7McYMyvJ1kGGF-uliP2OPcOibG7CoSCWbSS-gqCLZQTWa0_FdbdLbkpUUIyb4M_vhhROnzgKW2858Y6X203vZnTy8z_EBYYduoIgvm39nU38QRbw91JJ3qUaIC7R2wNuZY8f5bukAq73sWu_T5veFeEOic7GYv8xE5u-07KEWjqqkMWchld2A4rTBzcwIKOrYPWMIiR2aEml9si2IO1LwUFGXzO6PGB5KpX2p8hHKdUpglr2mCDTrZJePabnAp2MvRcdiOyv7bLOuo1-eIvg3nZw_OMJIsis2vPBE5vaBPq7WFhgWHREKjAw5-D2vog4Nqm4BRvnNu3aYI>
of
Québec parliamentarians, professors and union leaders that travelled to
Chile in late January recently demanded Ottawa speak out against the abuses
(four died in protest related violence last week). In a release
<https://miningwatch.ca/news/2020/1/28/canadian-delegation-receives-report-linking-human-and-environmental-abuses-canadian?__cf_chl_jschl_tk__=3beda21443206a64aab0bc9e17b9dedf6ecd9967-1580855386-0-AR3HrK06lO1Q5ggF58qdwnf8eW54rs5b9CaPeMdxUkSy68vE94OPtT5NvKlyGkOhUMNqUYrQYLKHHEljuqA4Y5tERHUiqEXTWMdInW-Dg_b40MZx8jcBRu5tuXCDcNLg1S-25rNydFOTPuc3Vas5c06_32jW4pXL2dFpDh8ELLsK5Tt-4a7gHzsJavT6FVnojB1xko8zcAptN0TUPNZz2pi3QyFJWKBQVQDoYRswx3_V6QTDSmie2i0IQ5HWvi0peFcoHsKoU3NtWySFOoWpIah_83u49MmFQTOhEwMoJ8iNQIX7f0FAg4LAq3AEKVwTmfGDyQg6EYvUsavR-IrC8vcmP_a2oq5vxhsDkm4Avwoph67l_JlLLdvvtgO-0_XiwXqa5bFKwWOPtIdtgi6yjzc>
about
the delegation, Mining Watch noted that over 50% of Chile’s large mining
industry is Canadian-owned. Canadian firms are also major players in the
country’s infrastructure and Scotiabank is one of the country’s biggest
financial players
<https://www.newswire.ca/news-releases/scotiabank-completes-the-purchase-of-a-majority-stake-in-bbva-chile-687527331.html>.
Chile is also the top destination
<https://www.canada.ca/en/global-affairs/news/2019/05/minister-carr-concludes-successful-trip-to-chile-and-apec-trade-ministerial-meeting.html>
for
Canadian investment in Latin America at over $20 billion.

As I detail in my forthcoming book *House of Mirrors: Justin Trudeau’s
Foreign Policy* (Black Rose), the Liberals have said little about hundreds
of killings by regimes in Haiti, Honduras, Bolivia, Chile and Colombia, yet
they have aggressively condemned rights violations in Venezuela and
Nicaragua. Many on the left would say this is because those governments are
aligned with Washington, which is true. But it is also because they are
friendly to corporate Canada.

If you want to understand Ottawa’s position on Latin America, listen to
what Canadian bankers have to say.

*Yves Engler has been dubbed “one of the most important voices on the
Canadian Left today” (Briarpatch), “in the mould of I.F. Stone” (Globe and
Mail), and “part of that rare but growing group of social critics unafraid
to confront Canada’s self-satisfied myths” (Quill & Quire). He has
published nine books.*

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