Currently it's a bipartisan affair. Both the Liberals and the Conservatives are inflexibly devoted to Canada's role as a lickspittle yes-man to the USA's imperialism as well as to whatever it takes to serve various corporate interests such as mining or pharmaceuticals. Given the fact that the Conservative Party of Canada is dominated by morons and troglodytes, it's no surprise that they'll be worse than the Liberals on any given issue. But when you think about it, the differences are surprisingly negligible. Sure, a Liberal tried to rein-in the worst offensives of our mining companies overseas. But his own party sandbagged him. Sure Chretien kept Canadian ground troops out of Iraq. But he didn't do that out of any moral scruples. Chretien was smart enough to know it would be a disaster as well as clearly illegal. But pretty much the entire Liberal front-bench disagreed with him. T'was the Liberals (under Chretien) who got us into Afghanistan. They made Canadian soldiers fight, kill and die to prop-up an unpopular, unelected, super-corrupt cabal of rapist gangsters.
Canada is governed by two major political parties. Both of them are unreservedly capitalist. The Liberals tend to recognize material reality and do not, therefore, deny the existence of global warming. They accept its reality while trying to combat it without doing anything that would set a precedent of limiting corporations' powers or profits. This is how we end up with toothless, voluntary and useless things like the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement. The Conservatives appear to be at odds with reality and refuse to accept what their own eyes tell them if it conflicts with the moronic delusions that govern their miserable lives. They will withdraw from the Kyoto or Paris initiatives because they represent the existence of a problem that requires regulation of capitalism and limits to their profits. It's difficult to decide which position is more vile. Acknowledging an existential threat to civilization while doing nothing about it, or denying the obvious existence of said threat. (The NDP affects a "social democratic" ideology which says that the fruits of the economy HAVE to be shared with some degree of equity by the whole society. The NDP does this until it becomes a government-in-waiting party. In such cases, such as British Columbian and Manitoba, they have move rightwards to fill the spot vacated by a discredited Liberal party.)
Currently, under the figurehead leadership of mental mediocrity Justin Trudeau, the odious Crystia Freeland is currently engaged in the titanic hypocrisy of imposing sanctions on Nicaragua and Venezuela.
Nicaraugua:
June 21, 2019 – Ottawa, Ontario - Global Affairs Canada
In coordination with the United States, Canada is announcing sanctions in response to gross and systematic human rights violations that have been committed in Nicaragua. Canada is imposing sanctions against key members of the Government of Nicaragua under the Special Economic Measures Act. These sanctions send a clear message that the Government of Nicaragua’s ongoing human rights violations against its people will not be tolerated.
Since April 2018, the Government of Nicaragua has conducted a systematic campaign of repression and state-sponsored violence against public protests and the activities of opposition groups.
The Government of Nicaragua’s unacceptable conduct has been well-documented by international human rights organizations, including the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, as well as local human rights organizations.
Despite progress on the release of political prisoners, Canada remains concerned by reports of human rights violations. These include: violating the right to life, security, free speech, and free assembly. There have also been well-documented reports of extrajudicial killings, torture, and abuse of protestors. To date, those responsible for human rights violations have not been held accountable.
Quotes
“Human rights violations in Nicaragua cannot continue with impunity. The Government of Nicaragua must be held accountable for its action and must bring an end to the current crisis through real dialogue with opposition groups. Canada will continue to stand with the people of Nicaragua and their legitimate demands for democracy and accountability.”
- Hon. Chrystia Freeland, P.C., M.P., Minister of Foreign Affairs
Venezuela:
After democratic elections held in December 2015 saw a coalition of opposition parties win a majority in the National Assembly, the Venezuelan government proceeded to systematically strip the powers of the National Assembly. In January 2016, President Nicolas Maduro declared a state of emergency and has since been ruling by decree. During the spring of 2017 Maduro created a National Constituent Assembly (or ANC), which stripped the democratically-elected, opposition-led National Assembly of its powers. Countries from around the globe, including Canada, refuse to recognize the legitimacy of the National Constituent Assembly or any of its decisions.
As a result of the government’s systematic erosion of Venezuela’s democratic institutions and its grave human rights abuses, and in response to the Association between Canada and the United States that was formed on September 5, 2017, which called on its members to take economic measures against Venezuela and persons responsible for the current situation in Venezuela, the Special Economic Measures (Venezuela) Regulations came into force. On September 22, 2017, Canada listed 40 individuals linked to the Maduro regime and its actions against the security, stability and integrity of democratic institutions in Venezuela.
On November 23, 2017, Canada announced targeted sanctions against 19 Venezuelan officials under the Justice for Victims of Corrupt Foreign Officials Act. These individuals are responsible for, or complicit in, gross violations of internationally recognized human rights, have committed acts of significant corruption, or both.
The presidential elections of May 2018, did not meet international standards to be considered either free or fair. As such, the electoral process and results were rejected by Canada and many likeminded partners as lacking transparency, legitimacy and credibility. On May 30, 2018, in response to further erosion of democratic institutions in Venezuela and the consolidation of President Maduro’s power through the illegitimate elections of May 20, 2018, the Special Economic Measures (Venezuela) Regulations were amended to add fourteen (14) additional individuals, bringing to 70 the total number of Venezuelan officials sanctioned by Canada.
On January 10, 2019, Maduro swore himself in for a second term based on the illegitimate and anti-democratic elections of May 2018. His claim to the presidency was rejected by Canada, the international community, and the democratically-elected National Assembly of Venezuela; on January 15, 2019, the National Assembly declared that Nicolas Maduro had usurped the presidential powers. On January 23, 2019, the President of the National Assembly, based on article 233 of the Venezuelan Constitution, assumed the interim presidency of Venezuela. To date, more than 50 countries, including Canada, have recognized Juan Guaidó as Interim President of Venezuela.
Since then, the Maduro regime has increased the persecution and repression of its political opponents and the Venezuelan people. Their oppressive actions include preventing relief supplies from entering Venezuela; the widespread arrests of hundreds of anti-regime protestors; censorship and suppression of freedom of expression; the use of the co-opted judiciary to pursue political leaders and civilians who exercise their civil and political rights; and the extrajudicial killing of dozens of people during protests against the Maduro regime.
The repressive acts of the Venezuelan government have been widely criticized in reports by credible sources, including the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights; a Panel of Independent International Experts appointed by the Secretary General of the Organization of American States; the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights; Amnesty International; Human Rights Watch; and others.
The amendment of April 15, 2019 added 43 individuals to the Regulations, most of whom are high level officials of the Maduro regime implicated in the actions mentioned above. The amendment brought to 113 the total number of Venezuelan individuals subject to Canadian sanctions. Among those individuals listed on April 15, 2019, Manuel Ricardo Cristopher Figuera was sanctioned for leading the Bolivarian National Intelligence Service (October 2018 to April 30, 2019). He has since broken with the Maduro regime, and the amendment of June 25, 2019 has removed him from the Schedule to the Regulations.
Here's some pushback against these hypocritical complaints against Nicaragua:
Counterpunch Dan Kovalik:
It was only a matter of time before the US government and its compliant media would once again put Nicaragua in their sights. And, that time has indeed come.
Last year, the US House of Representatives voted unanimously in favor of the Nicaraguan Investment Conditionality Act of 2017 (NICA Act) which would cut that already-poor country off from loans offered by international financial institutions.
Citing the Alliance for Global Justice, Telesur reported at the time that “‘[t]he Nicaraguan government uses foreign assistance from the international financial institutions to support social spending on health and education which have become an ever larger proportion of the national budget.’” Telesur explained that the NICA Act therefore “poses a serious danger to the Central American nation’s economy and could result in a humanitarian crisis and waves of economic refugees that would flee toward the U.S. border, joining waves of migrants from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador.”
Currently, Nicaragua is the only country victimized by the US-backed Central American Wars which is not also a source of immigrants to the US. This is in no small part due to the Sandinistas’ effective social programs. As for the Sandinistas’ social programs, eventhe New York Times acknowledged that “[m]any poor people who receive housing and other government benefits support” Sandinista President, Daniel Ortega.
Incredibly, as the US is preparing to build a wall ostensibly to keep out Central American and Mexican migrants, it is poised to exacerbate the very migration problem it claims to want to stop. This simply defies all logic and notions of morality and decency.
As Noam Chomsky has opined numerous times, the US shall never forgive the Nicaraguan people for overthrowing the US-backed Somoza dictatorship in 1979, for militarily defeating the Contras and for then voting back in the Sandinistas in 2007. The NICA Act is pay-back for such crimes.
But meanwhile, the NICA Act was getting no apparent movement in the US Senate and appeared to be a dead letter. And so, right on cue, we witness violent protests in Nicaragua which closely resemble the violent guarimbas which have plagued Venezuela on and off since Nicolas Maduro was elected in 2013. These demonstrations will surely be used as a pretext to revive the NICA Act in the US Senate.
Charles Redvers at The Greyzone:
Even Ortega critics, like Ben Waddell, have said that US agencies such as the National Endowment for Democracy have been laying the groundwork for insurrection by giving financial support to the Nicaraguan opposition.
In the middle of the crisis, its leaders traveled to Washington and Miami, funded by Freedom House, to meet right-wing Republicans like Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz ,and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen.
Student leaders went on to seek support from the extreme right in El Salvador, meeting officials of the Arena party.
More recently, they appeared at the Hudson Institute in Washington, DC, a bastion of right-wing militarism and pro-Israel extremism. What does all this tell us about their political intentions?
...
Third, while the deaths in the protests are a major tragedy, calling them a “massacre” gives credence to the exaggerated and cynically manipulated numbers being used by the opposition. A detailed analysis of casualties in the first two months, which eliminated double-counted and incidents unrelated to the protests, found there had been 119 deaths, divided equally between both “sides.” A recent official count logs 197 deaths by late July.
Ellsberg cites higher figures from reports by the Inter-American Human Rights Commission (IACHR), but they lost any credibility they might have had by jumping to conclusions based on the work of the two local human rights bodies, which both have a long history of open bias against the Sandinista government. Paulo Abrāo, head of IACHR, far from being a neutral observer, openly declared his support for student protesters on May 19 when they had just violently held up a bus full of people returning from a peace demonstration, resulting in various injuries.
Fourth, like the opposition leaders themselves, Ellsberg refers to “peaceful” protesters and refuses to accept the violence which they perpetrated. This has included the murder of 22 police, plus many government officials and Sandinista supporters, the most recent a few days ago in Matagalpa. Several Sandinistas have endured gruesome torture.
She refers to the violent scenes when government forces managed to reopen access to the cities of Jinotepe and Diriamba, in which Sandinista supporters attacked priests and bishops. (Ironically, they were protected by a heavy police escort, the very police the bishops had earlier asked to be taken off the streets.) What she fails to say is how angry people were at the church being used as a place of sanctuary for armed protesters who terrorized these two cities for over a month, holding about 400 drivers and their vehicles hostage on the main highway.
The government would never have been able to remove the hundreds of barricades the opposition erected if they hadn’t had popular support to do so.
Since Nicaragua’s socialist Sandinista Front returned to power through democratic elections in 2006, the United States government has poured many millions of dollars into right-wing opposition groups in the Central American country.
These US-funded NGOs have aimed to destabilize the government of Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, and played a central role in a brutally violent coup attempt in 2018.
Nicaragua’s National Assembly responded to the Washington-sponsored violence and destabilization efforts by passing a law in October 2020 that requires organizations funded by outside governments to register as foreign agents.
The legislation is very similar to a law passed by the United States in 1938 known as the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA). In recent years, Washington has exploited FARA to force Russian and Chinese media outlets and journalists working in the United States to register as foreign agents — in a bipartisan, Cold War-style political escalation against both countries.
Though Washington has had this legislation on the books for more than eight decades, and still utilizes it regularly, the Joe Biden administration has lashed out at Nicaragua for its decision to pass a similar law.
On February 8, US State Department spokesperson Ned Price, a former CIA agent, published a statement condemning the elected Sandinista government.
Price claimed that President “Ortega is driving Nicaragua toward dictatorship,” because the new foreign agent law led to the voluntary suspension of operations of a major US government-funded opposition organization in the country.
Price demonized Nicaragua’s democratically elected government as a “regime,” while stressing that the US government is “focused on empowering civil society.”
...
Price’s statement condemning Nicaragua came one day after the US-backed right-wing president of Haiti, Jovenel Moïse, effectively declared himself a dictator, ruling without a Senate or Chamber of Deputies, hand-picking mayors, shooting journalists, and killing protesters.
Fixating on Nicaragua, the CIA staffer-turned-State Department spokesperson concluded his declaration with a thinly veiled threat: “We urge President Ortega to change course now.”
And now, Venezuela:
Sabina Becker on the achievements of the Bolivarians under Chavez:
Telesur is another of Chavecito’s great achievements: a public TV channel of international scope, the first of its kind in Latin America. Its purpose: to counteract the lies and propaganda of private media, including the US channels who helped to foment the coup and shape public opinion in its favor throughout North America. The local private media, after all, were co-authors of the Venezuelan putsch. Hence the documentary’s title!
And even now, even on the day of Chavecito’s funeral, the lamestream media up here are still blatting about what an evil “populist” he was, what a “dictator”, what a “strongman”. When the truth is that he was popular (not “populist”), the people dictated the constitutional order to him (and he obeyed!), and he was a strong man, two words, not a “strongman”. What IS a strongman? That putschist figure so beloved of US imperialism that they never hesitate to install their own wherever there are resources to be plundered by their corporations…and then get upset when he invariably goes off script. See Saddam Hussein, Augusto Pinochet, the Argentine Junta, etc., etc. THOSE were dictators. But as one young man points out shortly after the coup as the putschist police of Caracas are terrorizing the streets and gunning down Chavistas, in the three years that Chávez had then been in power, there had never been any repression. What the hell kind of dictatorial strongman doesn’t repress?
By the way, today is International Working Women’s Day. (Yes, this day has socialist origins. Surprise!) Do the women of Venezuela rejoice because a nasty, oppressive, wife-beating tyrant is dead? No…they mourn because they lost their greatest presidential ally of all time. Chavecito was a proud, self-proclaimed feminist. It was no empty vote-getting statement; he really did give them the political tools they needed to carve out rooms of their own. And the women adored him for that. He consulted with them, along with other social movements, in the writing of the Bolivarian Constitution itself. Previous presidents either pointedly ignored them, or only made the rounds to shake hands and kiss babies when it was time to divvy up the votes again between AD and COPEI. Voter apathy, as noted in the translation above, was huge before Chávez, and greatly diminished after.
Because of Chávez, being Venezuelan is now a matter of pride. Participatory democracy grew thanks to his efforts, social inequality shrank, poverty dwindled and the GDP rose. An impoverished country that used to import 80% of its food is now becoming self-sufficient again, as it was before the oil boom. And dreams were not only made, they came true. It’s not surprising, then, that the people have turned out in droves today, not only in Venezuela but all over the world, to pay homage once more to the man who turned the accepted order of things on its ear…and succeeded.
Sabina Becker translates from apporea.org:
A survey by International Consulting Services (ICS) found that 85.3% of Venezuelans disagree with the protests mounted by sectors of the Venezuelan far-right.
These violent actions, which involve roadblocks, have caused damage to state institutions, destruction, and closures of public roads and services, as part of a putschist plan against the government.
Simón Córdoba, representative of the consulting firm, told VTV that the survey, conducted between February 17 and 24, also showed that 81.6% of Venezuelans consider the opposition protests to have been violent.
91.3% of those surveyed said that preservation of peace and democracy are “very important”, while 54.8% stated that democracy is guaranteed.
52.3% of respondents affirmed that freedom of expression in Venezuela is very well guaranteed, while 54.2% said that human rights are supported.
65.2% say that the actions of the police have been in line with the law.
The ICS survey reached 1400 homes, has a margin of error of 2.7%, and a reliability rating of 95%.
Daniel Kovalik at Counterpunch:
As famed Latin American author Eduardo Galeano once wrote, “every time the US ‘saves’ a country, it converts it into either an insane asylum or a cemetery.” Of course, as we look over the wreckage left by the US in countries such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Somalia, Syria, El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, we see that this statement is demonstrably true. And yet, now that the US is poised for another intervention, this time in Venezuela, the press is right there again to cheer it along.
Analyzing 76 total press articles of the “elite” press from January 15 to April 15, 2019, Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR) could find not one voice that opposed Trump’s regime plans in Venezuela. Meanwhile, 54 percent openly supported these plans. Of course, this should not be all too surprising given the press’s usual complicity in past US war efforts — e.g., by pushing such war lies as the Gulf of Tonkin, the killing of babies in Kuwait, the WMDS of Iraq and the alleged Viagra-fueled rapes in Libya. The current war lies are coming fast and furious from such outlets as CNN which lied about seeing Maduro forces lighting aid containers on fire at the Colombian border (it was in fact opposition forces which did so as the NYT admitted two weeks later), and which claimed that US puppet Juan Guaido actually won the presidential election against Nicolas Maduro when in fact Guaido never even ran for president.
What is quite stunning, however, is the total unanimity of the press in uncritically covering and supporting the ongoing coup in Venezuela. This is baffling because the same press outlets which have been rightly critical of Trump for all of his stupidity, lying and meanness, have suddenly found him brilliant, true and benevolent when it comes to Venezuela. This is particularly remarkable given that his partners in this crime are Neo-Con John Bolton; former CIA Director Mike Pompeo who recently joked that the CIA’s true motto is “We lied, We Cheated, We Stole”; and convicted liar Elliott Abrams. As for Abrams, he is infamous for his role in the illegal funding of the Nicaraguan Contras; his covering up of the El Mazote massacre in El Salvador in which around
1000 civilians, mostly women and children, were killed by US-backed forces; and his aiding and abetting the US-backed genocide in Guatemala.
And yet, somehow, we are to believe from our “free” press that this band of rogues is going to deliver democracy and human rights to Venezuela.
Canada is doing this in concert with murderous, corrupt, fraudulently elected and [at least] quasi-fascist countries like Honduras, Colombia and Brazil. As well as, obviously, the brazenly hypocritical, international menace, mass-murdering bipartisan monstrosity of the USA.
Any idiot can see that the countries targeted by the maniacs in Washington D.C. are so targeted not because of their alleged human rights abuses, but because of their independence. Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, ... they are all trying to resist the political-economic system demanded by the USA. This system is so despised that the people of Latin America (including Mexico) are constantly trying to reject it electorally (and when that fails) either militarily or with their feet by becoming refugees. At this very moment, mass protests have erupted in Colombia (where they are met with murderous police violence), the people of Chile have overthrown the neo-liberal constitution written by the corrupt, fascist traitor Pinochet. The people of Bolivia have resisted the neo-liberal electoral campaign of Keiko Fujimori (daughter of thief and mass-murderer Alberto Fujimori) to elect a socialist president. Brazil is currently being run by fascist moron Jair Bolsonaro who used judicial fraud to incapcitate his leftist adversaries.
But Crystia Freeland (in continuity with the loathsome stephen harper) pretends not to understand this. As do partisan hack shithead Liberal bloggers.
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