A Socially Just Foreign Policy

Courage endorses Canadian Foreign Policy Institute Call to Reassess Canadian Foreign Policy

The Courage Coalition has endorsed the recent Canadian Foreign Policy Institute (CFPI) call to Reassess Canadian Foreign Policy. Canadian foreign policy has consistently failed to reflect our commitments to international solidarity and the rights of all peoples to dignity, health and security. Canada’s government and political parties are not devoting adequate attention to developing and implementing a socially just foreign policy for Canada.

In recent months, Courage has issued a number of statements concerning Canada’s foreign policy, including:

• a call for the Canadian government to break from its endorsement of the U.S. efforts to undermine democracy in Venezuela, to end sanctions and extend solidarity through humanitarian aid to Venezuelans.
• a call for the Canadian government to end sanctions against Iran and to act to support Iranian public health services and to send relief to Iran
• a call to Canadian politicians to  speak up and support international law  in regards to human rights for the Palestinian people, including their self-determination and the Right of Return for Palestinian refugees.

Some issues that many Courage members are concerned about, and following closely, include:

• Canada’s bombing of Libya in 2011 as part of a push for regime change that led directly to a civil war that has been raging since 2014, killing thousands and displacing hundreds of thousands
  
• Canada’s military involvement in a 2004 coup d’état in Haiti, and implication in 16 years of suppression of democracy in that country
  
• Corporations in Canada supplying billions of dollars in arms and training to Saudi Arabia as they conduct a brutal assault on Yemen, in which tens of thousands have been killed, and as a result of which hundreds of thousands of children are “severely malnourished,” with millions at risk
  
• The rise of regimes that systematically attack democratic rights in India and Brazil, and Canada’s diplomatic and economic complicity in those processes.

The continued service of Canada’s foreign policy to the interests of extractive industries, militarism and profiteering at the expense of Indigenous and human rights, workers, democracy, international law and environmental responsibility is unacceptable.

Courage’s commitments to international solidarity, decolonization, self-determination and environmental justice align with CFPI’s call for a fundamental reassessment of Canada’s foreign policy. Along with our collective endorsement, Courage members are encouraged to support the campaign here.