In little more than a decade, starting with the election of Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez, the political orientation of the Western Hemisphere has dramatically transformed. Although a few countries remain wedded to the tenets of the so-called Washington Consensus, one thing is clear: Latin America is charting an independent course. The latest example came in February, when the region’s governments resolved to create the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, a new regional organization that will exclude two countries in the hemisphere, the United States and Canada. The exclusion of the former comes as no surprise to observers of Latin America, who take as an article of faith the United States’ heavy hand in the region—militarily, economically, culturally—from the Monroe Doctrine of 1823 to the repeated interventions in the region throughout the Cold War. Washington’s leasing of seven military bases in Colombia suggests that the Obama administration’s promise of a new era in inter-American relations remains more rhetoric than reality.
But why exclude Canada, a country seen by many in the international community as committed to multilateralism, democracy, the rule of law, and human rights? As this issue of the NACLA Report makes clear, the Canadian role in the region is complex. Behind the do-gooder facade is a country torn in contradictory directions, not all of which are particularly benevolent. Under the government of Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper, three factors have exerted a powerful influence on Canadian involvement in Latin America: (1) corporate interests, particularly extractive industries, (2) politicians’ commitment to free market fundamentalism, and (3), above all, the government’s frankly slavish alignment with U.S. foreign policy. This disposition has increasingly undermined Canada’s traditional reputation and has sent an unfortunate message to the region: Tory Canada is the Empire’s apprentice.
Since coming to office in 2006, the Conservative government has accelerated the pursuit of free trade agreements, clinging to the NAFTA boilerplate, including a deal with Colombia in spite of that country’s systematic human rights abuses (namely the assassination of trade unionists, and the displacement of rural peoples from the land), which are directly relevant to both trade and investment issues. At the 2009 Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago, Harper pushed for trade liberalization and fretted that the debate over U.S.-Cuba relations was distracting attention from free trade.
NACLA decided to take a critical look at Canada’s role in the Western Hemisphere. This issue includes a series of articles that assess various components of Canada’s strategy of “re-engagement.” It commences with an overview by Ricardo Grinspun and Yasmine Shamsie, tracing Canada’s contradictory foreign policy commitments: on the one hand, a neoliberal trade strategy, and on the other, a stated policy of respecting the democratic process, favoring multilateralism in diplomatic affairs, and rigorously adhering to human rights and environmental standards. The Report then offers a handful of case studies. Maxwell A. Cameron and Jason Tockman spotlight Canada’s lackluster response to the 2009 coup in Honduras. Sheila Katz and Gauri Sreenivasan offer an insiders’ account of the grassroots movement that has so far kept the proposed Canada-Colombia free trade agreement from being ratified, despite the growing influence of Canadian corporate interests in Parliament. Karyn Keenan examines the role of the Canadian extractive sector throughout Latin America, and Neil Burron takes up the question of Canadian democracy assistance policies, with a focus on Bolivia.
The Toronto-based Globe and Mail captured the spirit behind Canada’s Western Hemisphere policy in March: “The Canadian government’s desire to bolster fledgling free-market democracies in Latin America in an ideological competition with left-leaning, authoritarian nationalists like Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez is rarely expressed with force, even though it is at the heart of an Ottawa initiative,” namely the Colombian free trade agreement. It is exactly this framing of the options facing the region—free market democracies versus left-leaning authoritarian nationalism—that will designate Canada as the United States’ junior partner in the hemisphere.
