(The following article is from the January 1-15, 2010 issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $30/year, or $15 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $45 US per year; other overseas readers - $45 US or $50 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 133 Herkimer St., Unit 502, Hamilton, ON, L8P 2H3.)

Review by Tim Pelzer: The Black Book of Canadian Foreign Policy, by Yves Engler, Fernwood Publishing, 285 pages, $24.95, ISBN: 9781552663141

The Harper government's failure to condemn the US sponsored military coup against Honduran President Manuel Zelaya should surprise no one. As Yves Engler demonstrates in The Black Book of Canadian Foreign Policy, Canada has a long track record of supporting dictatorships, overthrowing democratically elected governments and backing US interventions abroad.

     Since the early 20th century, Canadian Conservative and Liberal Party governments have supported repressive regimes across Latin America, Asia and Africa where Canadian mining, oil companies and banks had substantial business interests. This included brutal regimes such as Somoza's Nicaragua, Pinochet's Chile and Mobutu's Zaire (now renamed the Congo).

      While publicly denouncing South Africa's former apartheid regime, Canadian governments helped prop up the racist system. Canada opposed international sanctions, allowed companies to invest in and sell arms to South Africa, and helped the regime develop nuclear weapons. Only after mounting protest did former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney impose sanctions against the regime in 1986, but even then trade between the two nations continued.

     In pre-revolutionary Cuba, Canada enjoyed friendly relations with corrupt dictator Fulgencio Batista. Canadian banks and insurance companies became central players in the country's economy, and Prime Minister John Diefenbaker's conservative government appreciated Batista's support and protection of foreign investment. When Fidel Castro's rebel army overthrew Batista in 1959, Canada opposed the country's new revolutionary government. However, the US State Department urged Diefenbaker to continue trade and diplomatic relations with Cuba to allow it to gather intelligence information for the US. A secret listening post in Canada's Havana embassy has been evesdropping on Cuban leaders' conversations since 1959, according to Engler. Pentagon and State Department sources have lauded Canada for providing the best intelligence on the island nation, especially in regards to the Cuban military. Engler reveals that the Harper government is targeting Cuba for destabilization under the guise of promoting democracy.

     Prime Minister Jean Chretien's Liberal government conspired with the U.S. and France to destabilize and overthrow democratically elected President Jean-Betrand Aristide's center left government of Haiti. The Aristide government was committed to improving conditions for the poor majority, undertaking such reforms as doubling the minimum wage and setting up social welfare programs. In 2003, the Chretien government organized a meeting with U.S. and French officials in Ottawa where they decided that Aristide must be removed and Haiti placed under UN trusteeship. Canadian-funded non-government organizations, along with those from the U.S., created and funded opposition groups to wreak havoc and make the country ungovernable. When US forces kidnapped Aristide on Feb. 29, 2004, Canadian commandos secured Port-au-Prince's airport to allow a US plane to land and then fly the elected president to the Central African Republic. The U.S., Canadian and French governments then installed an intern government drawn from opposition groups they created. With the help of U.S. and UN soldiers, the regime initiated a campaign to kill and terrorize supporters of Aristide's Famni Lavalas Party, which enjoys broad support. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police took over training and leadership of the Haitian National Police which did the brunt of the killing. Engler provides evidence that Canadian forces participated in the repression.

     While Canada publicly opposed the US invasion of Iraq in 2001, it quietly permitted Canadian companies to sell weapons and supplies to U.S. invading forces. Canadian military planners helped the U.S. army develop its campaign to defeat the Iraqi army, and Canadian naval vessels were sent to the Gulf zone to support U.S. naval forces. Canadian officers and soldiers on exchange trips with the U.S. military took part in the invasion. Canadian pilots flew U.S. air force AWAC radar planes that guided air attacks against the Iraqi military. Former U.S. ambassador to Canada Paul Cellucci commented at the time that, "Ironically, the Canadians indirectly provide more support for us in Iraq than most of those 46 countries that are fully supporting us."

     According to Engler, Jean Chretien told Bill Clinton: "Keeping some distance will be good for us. If we look as though we were the fifty-first state of the US, there's nothing we can do for you internationally, just as the governor of a state can't do anything for you internationally. But if we look independent enough, we can do things for you that even the CIA cannot do." According to former Foreign Affairs Minister Bill Graham: "Foreign Affairs' view was there was a limit to how much we can constantly say no to the political masters in Washington."

     A major defect in the book is Engler's tendency to insert block quotations to support his assertions without mentioning who made them. One has to look in the chapter end notes to learn who is being quoted. But The Black Book of Canadian Foreign Policy is a persuasive, well researched, sweeping historical critique of Canadian foreign policy.

     The former vice-resident of the Concordia Student Union in Montreal, Engler has also published Playing Left Wing: From Rink Rat to Student Radical and (with Anthony Fenton), Canada in Haiti: Waging War on The Poor Majority.