Canada vs. Venezuela
Sat. March 24, 2018, University of Toronto
introduction by Maria Páez Victor to an event in defense of the Bolivarian revolution
Friends, Compañeros, good afternoon to you all.
Thank you so very much for being here today, expressing your solidarity with Venezuela, a country that is being besieged by the power of the USA and its allies, including Canada.
The economic war being waged against Venezuela is brutal: sabotage, hoarding, smuggling, fires, street gang violence, paramilitary raids on farmers and food delivery trucks, destroying electricity lines and black market and monetary manipulations. The object is of to destroy the Venezuelan economy and bring down its legitimate, democratic government. This USA economic war is not new, they did the same in Guatemala in the ‘50s, El Salvador in the 80s, Chile in the 70’s and is still trying in Cuba.
The sanctions imposed on Venezuela impede it from buying, selling, paying its international debts and even obtaining its own revenues from its US based CITGO oil company. Right now, as we speak, there are large ships loaded with food and medicine languishing off the port of La Guaira that are unable to unload because of the sanctions.
The reasons for this war are twofold:
One, is that Venezuela has the largest deposit of petroleum in the world, surpassing even those of Saudi Arabia. Powerful countries and oil companies wish to totally control it. They resent that the Venezuelan Bolivarian government considers oil the patrimony of its people, not corporations, and is using the revenues for social needs. Former Secretary of State Tillerson, who recently headed Exxon Mobil, had a particular interest in bringing down Venezuela: as Exxon is the only oil company not present in Venezuela because it refused to accept the country's constitutional control over its natural resources.
Secondly, Venezuela is a bad example for capitalism. Its Bolivarian Revolution has clear achievements:
• securing Venezuelan sovereignty over its oil and other natural resources,
• providing valuable public services for its people with the oil revenues,
• its participatory democracy and protection of human rights,
• reducing poverty and exclusion,
• its stated desire for a socialist system not a capitalist one,
• and its remarkable inroads towards regional solidarity and integration.
I am sure you have all read the atrocious coverage of Venezuela in the Canadian media, full of lies and exaggerations. One would think people are dying in the streets. Instead just this week we learned that extreme poverty has been reduced once again, now stands at 4.4%, even in these hard times’ because the social net has government priority.
The media coverage is not generally based on Canadian viewpoints since its source comes overwhelmingly from the regurgitation of biased reports of the NYT, Reuters, United Press and USA pundits. It is a shame that our media outlets rely on foreign USA views on Latin America and the Caribbean.
However, just last week Metro and the Toronto Star surprised us by publishing an excellent article on Venezuela written by that brilliant journalist, Linda McQuaig – who by the way, is the only major Canadian journalist ever to be given an interview by President Hugo Chávez. A barrage of vituperative Twitter insults fell upon her for having the audacity to write positively on Venezuela.
For those of us who have chosen to live in this beautiful land of Canada, with its peace-loving and generous people, that has welcomed so many of us with open arms, it is a source of great distress to see the present Federal Government engaged in illegal sanctions clearly to effect “regime change” in Venezuela.
Venezuela, is a country that has never demonstrated anything but friendship towards Canada, that is no threat whatsoever to the Canadian people or their interests.
These sanctions are in direct violation of the fundamental principles of the United Nations and Organization of American States, in other words, of international law, as they impinge on a country’s sovereignty and internal affairs.
Minister Christia Freeland has stomped all over the ideals held in the Canadian imagination of fair dealing, respect of international law and peacekeeping. Freeland’s hostile policy towards Venezuela frontally contradicts Canada’s traditional constructive engagement approach.
She is prepared to stoop very low and drag down the reputation of this fine country just to get on the “good” side of Trump (if he has one) to preserve NAFTA, whatever its shortcomings may be.
I am of the mind that Freeland would never have found any role in the cabinets of Pierre Trudeau and Jean Chretien.
Let us, remember as we discuss the illegal - and I would forthrightly state, immoral- USA, EU and Canadian sanctions against Venezuela, that the government of the day is not Canada.
By political convention it may represent the country, but Canada’s people are greater than any particular administration.
Today we will be discussing Canada’s foreign policy. And it behooves us to understand that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is among the ministries, the most unresponsive to ordinary citizens. For us, it is shrouded in secrecy with very little attempt to really consult the citizens on whose behalf they make portentous decisions.
We have organized this event to alert Canadians of the damage that Minister Freeland is doing to a democratic, peaceful, and friendly country in their name.
Printed by permission of Dr. Maria Paez Victor
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