Not only has Canada financed and otherwise supported opposition parties in Venezuela, Ottawa has allied itself with some of its most anti-democratic, hardline elements. While the Liberal government has openly backed Voluntad Popular’s bid to seize power since January, Ottawa has supported the electorally marginal party for years. Venezuelans require a vibrant opposition that challenges the government. They don’t need Canada to boost an electorally marginal party that drives the country into increasing conflict.

While she’s criticized some Canadian foreign policy decisions, May rarely strays far from the liberal establishment worldview. In laying out her party’s 2015 election position in Esprit de Corps magazine May wrote, “the world needs more Canada” and argued, “we should also support the United Nations’ ‘responsibility to protect’ doctrine”, which was used to justify bombing Libya in 2011 and ousting Haiti’s elected government in 2004. In her article May also bemoaned that “defence expenditures are headed to an unprecedented low.”

Canada’s current Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan heads a ministry intimately tied to a globally oriented corporate weapons industry that profits from war. Is this something Canadians understand and support? Or would the majority of us be upset to learn their Minister of Defence is an arms pusher, promoting sales to anti-democratic, repressive regimes?

The amicable relationship between the Trudeau government and repressive Middle East monarchies like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates demonstrates how little the Liberals care about democracy abroad. It also reveals the duplicity of Canada’s claim that its efforts to oust the Maduro government in Venezuela is all about supporting democracy.

Linking criticism of current policy to a mythical “golden era” is motivated by ideology and tactical considerations. Many leftists simply can’t think outside the benevolent foreign policy box. At the tactical level, it isolates the issue and is supposed to elicit a “this isn’t the Canada I know” reaction. But, structuring criticism in this way downplays the structural character of the problem and distorts the past.

Many Canadians are familiar with the Monroe Doctrine. First issued by the United States in 1823, it warned European powers against renewed colonization of the Western Hemisphere. Presented as anti-imperialist, the Monroe Doctrine was later used to justify US interference in regional affairs. We may be seeing the development of a Canadian equivalent. The ‘Trudeau Doctrine’ claims to support a “rules-based order”, the “constitution” and regional diplomacy independent of the United States.

Most Canadians think of their country as a force for good in the world, but efforts by the Trudeau government to overthrow Venezuela’s elected government have revealed the ugly truth about the Great White North. We are an important partner in imperialism, willing to interfere in the internal affairs of other countries, including the use of military force, to benefit the perceived self-interest of our elites.

Bill C-59 would authorize the Communications Security Establishment to carry out offensive operations against foreign actors. In effect, the Department of National Defence-run intelligence agency could seek to take a government offline, shutter a power plant, knock a drone out of the sky, or interfere in court proceedings and elections in countries Ottawa doesn’t deem “democratic.”

If after a half-century of illegal occupation, one can’t call for boycotting Israeli settlement goods, then when? After a century? Two? Or is the problem the particular country to be boycotted? Does the NDP hierarchy believe that anti-Semitism can be the only possible motivation for putting economic pressure on Israel to accept a Palestinian state?

On top of the $32 billion corporations repatriated in profits, Honest Accounts found that $68 billion was lost to illicit capital flight, mostly multinational corporations evading taxes. Their findings align with a 2015 UN Economic Commission for Africa/African Union panel that found companies are illegally moving about US $40 billion a year out of the continent.