The website of Canadian mining multinational Barrick says its vision is “to be the world’s best gold mining company by finding, acquiring, developing and producing quality reserves in a safe, profitable and socially responsible manner.”

Although no one would deny the profitability of the company’s operations, Barrick’s major new project in South America has activists, ecologists and residents questioning its claims of safety and social responsibility.

Scott Taylor is a Canadian journalist, as well as an editor, publisher, storyteller and ex-commando. He has reported from Serbia, Cambodia and Western Sahara, and is the veteran of 21 (unembedded) trips into Iraq. In September, 2004, he was betrayed by Iraqi police and kidnapped by anti-Western insurgents. After four days of captivity and beatings, Taylor was released through intervention by Turkish intelligence services. Undeterred, he returned to Iraq in 2005.

Up a flight of stairs, behind double-enforced bulletproof glass and a large, silent bodyguard sits the office of Francisco Ramirez, a mining-policy researcher and president of a small Colombian trade union.

Mining policy really isn’t sexy stuff and researching it usually isn’t a dangerous occupation, but some of Mr. Ramirez’s conclusions can mean life or death literally and figuratively. “Once they tried to kill me right here in this office,” said the researcher, who has survived seven assassination attempts.

Since it signed NAFTA (1994) and joined the Organization of American States, the Canadian government has aligned its foreign policy with that of the United States more closely than at any point in recent history. At the same time, the Canadian government has taken an increasing interest in the affairs of Latin America and the Caribbean.

Some attention has been paid to things like joint military exercises in the Caribbean with the U.S. and other allies, support for the damaging practices of Canadian mining companies and the expanding presence of Canadian financial interests in the global South, but a newer area of Canada’s foreign-policy posture warrants scrutiny: Canada’s deepening involvement in the controversial field of international “democracy promotion” activities.

Under Paul Martin’s Liberals and Stephen Harper’s Conservatives, the Cana-dian government has rapidly shed any pretense at having an independent foreign policy. In Haiti, Canadian forces joined their U.S. and French counterparts in carrying out the coup d’ tat of 2004, overthrowing the elected Lavalas government of Jean-Bertrand Aristide and instituting a foreign occupation of the country. In Afghanistan, similarly, thousands of Canadian troops are engaged in combat operations to defend the U.S.-led occupation and allow the U.S. military to focus its resources on Iraq. For years, escalating Canadian support for Israel has been part of this trend. In recent months, it has become more unabashed than ever.

There has been much gnashing of teeth over Canada’s foreign-policy stance since the day Stephen Harper and his Conservative government was elected to office.

Canada’s relations with the U.S. on a phalanx of fronts have been at the centre of controversy.

We brought an interesting video to the Six Nations information session at the Montreal Native Friendship Centre. The land and historic issues behind the reclamation of land at Six Nations were well explained. The video showed how, early in the dispute, hundreds of young people from the nearby non-Native town of Caledonia were lured to the Indigenous barricade by such enticements as beer, marshmallows and hot dogs. At first the kids were reasonable and talked about how they wanted to organize things. As the night wore on, things started to break down. The crowd became loud and raucous.

She’s everywhere. Less than a week after she was elected leader of the Green Party, Elizabeth May was on key political-pundit television programs exuding her trademark charm and energy, and sounding supremely confident. The media honeymoon with May will no doubt continue for some time. Stephen Harper, almost pathologically arrogant, won’t engage the media. The Liberals are leaderless and their leadership campaign is pretty boring. Jack Layton is all tactics and no vision his call for withdrawal from Afghanistan being the exception as he tries to implement a long-term (twenty-year?) strategy of replacing the Liberals. He is therefore all caution and no risk. Elizabeth May looks pretty interesting at the moment.

Unlike most Latin Americans, Cubans enjoy substantive rights. Despite the constant refrain, “no es facil,” Cubans don’t work as hard as their neighbours, nor do they suffer anxieties that they’ll have no access to health care or go homeless. Cuba’s transition team of experienced Communists can strengthen socialist institutions by opening up discussion on key decisions to its educated population.

Back in January, when the Harper Tories eked out their election squeaker, Canadian foreign policy wasn’t even on the radar screen, despite valiant efforts by the anti-war movement to challenge Canada’s role in the occupations of Haiti and Afghanistan. Things will be different next time. As Canadian troops die in sizeable numbers for the first time since the Korean War, foreign policy could become a key factor in blocking a Harper majority.

It’s true that the military brass, key business organizations like the Canadian Council of Chief Executives and the political right are pulling out all the stops, and this may have some impact. The “red rallies” to “support our troops” are a well-orchestrated campaign to whip up patriotic fervour, and every time a bomb kills civilians in Kabul, the corporate media sings the “save the Afghan civilians” tune.