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Join us for a talk and audiovisual presentation on Canada's role in Latin America. Canada has endorsed the U.S. campaign to replace the government of Venezuela. Likewise, Ottawa actively supported the CIA-backed coup against Allende as well as the Pinochet dictatorship that followed. To varying degrees Canada supported the overthrow of Guatemala's Jacob Arbenz and Brazil's João Goulart as well as the 1965 US invasion of the Dominican Republic and 1989 invasion of Panama.
Why has Ottawa opposed socialist or social democratic governments in Latin America?
Ottawa has acted in concert with Washington to thwart the region’s desire to back away from neoliberalism and U.S. dependence because Canadian corporations (with more than $100 billion invested) are among the leading investors throughout the region. Today Canadian mining operations are engulfed in intense social conflict from central Mexico to southern Chile. There is also a century old history of predatory Canadian investment throughout Latin America.
