Rather than the Golden Rule, the ethos guiding Canada’s relations to weak nations seems to be: ‘Do Unto Others The Last Thing You Would Have Them Do Unto You’.
For example, how many Canadians would want a foreign government to impose a gangster as our most powerful politician? But that’s exactly what this country did to Haiti.
Ottawa’s relationship to Michel Martelly highlights the two-faced spirit of Canada’s body politic. The federal government recently sanctioned Martelly, a vulgar and misogynistic musician. As such, the former Haitian president is no longer allowed to travel here and any assets he may have in Canada are supposed to be seized. Even before the sanctions Martelly had effectively become persona non-grata. In 2019 his planned performance in Montréal was canceled when Mayor Valérie Plante echoed Solidarité Québec-Haiti’s campaign by calling on the federal government to stop the rape apologist’s show. Martelly supported both the 1991 and 2004 coups against Jean-Bertrand Aristide, played a fundraiser for the FRAPH death squad and was a teenaged member of Duvaliers’ Tonton Macoutes paramilitary force. Still, the US and Canada intervened in the 2010 election to make Martelly president. Even as he’s no longer allowed into Canada, Ottawa continues to back Martelly’s PHTK party and his ally, Ariel Henry, leading Haiti. To help understand who Ottawa supports in Haiti, “Jafrikayiti” Jean Saint-Vil has compared it to Haitians foisting former Hells Angels leader Maurice ‘Mom’ Boucher or serial killer Carla Homolka on to Canada.
Another example of Do Unto Others The Last Thing You Would Have Them Do Unto You:
Justin Trudeau has repeatedly talked about the danger of the far right. Simultaneously, however, he promoted neo-Nazism in Ukraine. During his 2016 trip there Trudeau was photographed with Andriy Parubiy, Ukrainian Parliament speaker, who had a background with the far right and was accused of praising Hitler. Immediately after taking office in 2015 the Liberals announced significant support for equipping and training the neo-Nazi infiltrated National Police of Ukraine (NPU), which was founded after elected President Viktor Yanukovych was overthrown in 2014. A former deputy commander of the far-right Azov Battalion, Vadim Troyan had a series of senior positions in the NPU, including acting chief. Canada provided the force with thousands of uniforms and cameras and helped establish the country’s first national police academy. Beginning in mid 2016 some 20 to 45 Canadian police were in the Ukraine to support and advise the NPU. At the same time Canadians troops trained a force that included the best-organized neo-Nazis in the world. In June 2018 Canada’s military attaché in Kiev, Colonel Brian Irwin, met privately with officers from the Azov Battalion, who used the Nazi “Wolfsangel” symbol and praised officials who helped slaughter Poles and Jews during World War II. According to Azov, Canadian military officials concluded the briefing by expressing “their hopes for further fruitful cooperation.”
Another example:
A self-declared “antiracist”, Trudeau actively promotes apartheid against Palestinians. Canada’s PM recently congratulated Benjamin Netanyahu for his election victory and called for “close cooperation” between Israel and Canada. Further confirming the racist character of Zionism, Netanyahu recently tweeted that Jews have an “exclusive” right to all of Palestine and some of Syria. “The Jewish people have an exclusive and unquestionable right to all areas of the Land of Israel”, he noted. “The government will promote and develop settlement in all parts of the Land of Israel — in the Galilee, the Negev, the Golan, Judea and Samaria.” Ottawa supports Israeli apartheid in innumerable ways, including by subsidizing hundreds of registered charities that raise over a quarter billion dollars a year for projects in Israel.
In addition:
Canada’s major Jewish organizations, which have long promoted minority rights to protect their interests in Canada, advocate Jewish supremacy in Israel. Seventy years ago, the Canadian Jewish Congress played a big part in a Supreme Court case that helped do away with restrictive land covenants, which made it difficult for Jews, Blacks, Chinese and others deemed ‘non-white’ to buy property in some exclusive neighborhoods. Yet seven decades later leading Canadian Jewish figures from Irwin Cotler to Michael Levitt continue to promote the Jewish National Fund, which excludes non-Jews from its vast landholdings in Israel. Recently Bernie Farber provided a further example of the Do Unto Others The Last Thing You Would Have Them Do Unto You ethos espoused by a significant segment of Canadian Jewry. The Chair of Canadian Anti-Hate Network smeared those protesting Palestinian home demolition NGO Regavim, which was established by Bezalel Smotrich, an open racist and self-described “proud homophobe”. Farber’s motto appears to be: ‘I promote liberal values here but aggressive Jewish supremacy there’.
A somewhat more subtle manifestations of the twist in the Golden Rule of Canada’s body politic is:
Progressives who think privatized health and education services are a right-wing plot in Canada but promote foreign-funded NGOs that have undermined governmental capacity in highly impoverished nations. In a country like Haiti, for instance, social services are almost entirely privatized, run by “charities” often based in other countries who decide whether one qualifies for assistance. Foreign-funded NGOs have contributed to a process that has undermined Haitian governmental capacity. A 2004 Canadian International Development Agency evaluation noted, “supporting non-governmental actors contributed to the creation of parallel systems of service delivery. … In Haiti’s case, these actors [NGOs] were used as a way to circumvent the frustration of working with the government … this contributed to the establishment of parallel systems of service delivery, eroding legitimacy, capacity and will of the state to deliver key services.” The last things most Canadians would want is for our schools and social services to be run by private foreign charities.
Yet another example:
Canadians hate the idea of foreign governments interfering in Canadian politics but in Venezuela Ottawa continues to recognize a marginal opposition politician as president and in Haiti Canada/US effectively chose that country’s current leader. These are only two of many cases but both dwarf the most outlandish accusations made about Chinese or Russian intervention here.
Canadian foreign policy all too frequently inverts the Golden Rule, versions of which exist in every culture and religion. Instead of Doing Unto Others As You Would Have Them Do Unto You, the federal government and much of Canada’s ruling body politic promote politicians, ideas and policies abroad few would wish for inside this country.
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