The enormous and violent efforts by the United States and the Lima Group to secure regime change in Venezuela raises a question: Is this the policy Canadians want our government to pursue? Iran and Venezuela have shown courage in challenging US hegemony against all the odds. Where is Canada’s courage?

Unbeknownst to many, the Trudeau government has provided financial, policing and diplomatic support to the unpopular government of Jovenel Moïse in Haiti. The Liberals have also supported the violent suppression of the popular will in that country, and continued a two-decade-old Canadian policy of undercutting Haitian democracy.

As of May 25, Venezuela has recorded 1,121 coronavirus cases (22 per million inhabitants) and only 10 deaths. How have these positive statistics been achieved when for years the mainstream media—along with the United States and its allies, including Canada—has been heralding the imminent collapse of the country?

Trudeau’s alliance with Colombian President Iván Duque is difficult to align with the Liberal’s stated concern for and rhetoric on human rights in Venezuela. The same can be said for Ottawa’s failure to condemn the recent invasion attempt. The Trudeau government should be questioned on whether it was involved or had foreknowledge of the recent plot to invade Venezuela.

The Trudeau government’s Venezuela policy is a disgrace to all peace-loving Canadians who support the right to self-determination. Is it asking too much for Canadian MPs to work towards a common ground, even during the COVID-19 pandemic, to demand that Canada rescind its sanctions against Venezuela, and rebuff the Trump regime for its support for the recent coup attempt?

In the early morning hours of Sunday, May 3, speedboats left the Colombian coastlines and headed toward Venezuela. These boats had no authorization to cross the maritime border. They landed on the Venezuelan coastline at La Guaira. The people on the boats possessed satellite phones as well as uniforms and helmets with the flag of the United States of America.

This moment calls for global cooperation and solidarity, and on that front, Cuba provides a lesson for us all. We can start by demanding an end to US sanctions that stop Cuba from getting access to the resources it needs to fight this deadly pandemic, both for their own population and for the global beneficiaries of Cuban medical internationalism.

Minor shortcomings aside, Latin America’s Pink Tide is, without exaggeration, the richest and most complete overview of the region’s leftist experiments to date. The volume is an essential starting point for debate on progressive governments’ legacy and strategic lessons for counter-hegemonic processes everywhere.

Trudeau is being mandated once again to do Trump’s dirty work, opportunistically using his advantage over the other Lima Group members to directly reach out to Europe, the Caribbean and elsewhere, hoping to steal the international spotlight and gain votes at the UN for the Security Council seat Canada currently covets.

In short, the politicization of water in Chile comes at a vital historical moment not only for the country, but also for the planet. In the midst of the climate crisis, the fate of industrial civilization is at a crossroads, and the future of human survival on the planet has been thrown into question. The stakes could not be higher.